How and why to give yourself access to the back of your garden

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A trick that I learned a long time ago is to give yourself access to the back of your garden. If you don't do that, you have to step into the planting area whenever you need to do some trimming or weeding, which you can do, carefully, but it shouldn't be a regular thing.

A path behind the garden doesn't have to be perfect, but it does have to be stable, or you'll find yourself avoiding it and instead walking into the planting area - which of course you don't want to do. In the area pictured, next to the house, I have some river rocks for drainage, and then some smoother gray rocks as a transition, and also a few pieces of flagstone, which is for stable footing. This isn't a path to wander around while drinking your coffee (that's in front of the garden), this is for access, to be used only by the gardener, and occasionally by wiener dogs.

If you do this, take your time, and be sure that the rocks don't "teeter-totter". It takes a bit of fussing, digging a bit, and arranging the soil under the rocks, but it's worth it. You don't need to do anything else, just be sure that they're stable when you walk on them.

This path, as you can see, also gives me access to the automatic timers. I change the frequency and duration depending on the season, and I also replace the batteries every once in a while, so I need access. It's been raining a bit today, so I sure don't want to walk in the mud, and the rocks are arranged to drain quickly. The round ones are a little slippery, but not too bad because they're big and wide, and the flagstone is never slippery, even when wet. I also make sure that there's a gentle tilt to the rocks so they don't hold water. I don't want to walk in puddles!

So there ya go. I wish I had known this when I was younger, but I'm older and wiser now!

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