Installing a Stone Walkway.... Extremely Cheap!!

Tools You'll Need:

- Straight Edged Spade     
-  Hard Rake
- Tarp
- Wheel Burrow
- Hose
- Level
- Broom
- Human Ingenuity

Lawn Supplies:

- Size "A" fine Gravel
- Sand
- Rocks


To begin the project, plan it out and decide what you want it to look like. I've done this a few times, and so far I've only done nice lock stone in front of my front door, and this time I did a path to my garden shed. Either time, Ive made nice straight paths, because it was what I wanted, but you can easily do curved, round, or a mixture of shapes if you decide to. The other great part about this walkway, is that you can add to it and continue it later if you want to as well, so once its in, you can take it out, reshape it, or add to it as you like.

It can easily look like this, if you put some effort into it.




The first thing you want to do, especially if your making curves, is to take your empty hose and lay it out to mark your edges.

 
Your hose will help you to make nice looking lines, which you want to follow with your spade to cut away the grass and expose your path. Use your wheel barrow to haul away the grass and excess dirt, saving some of the loose soil on a tarp to use after if you want to fill in and plant grass amongst the rock path.

Once you have the path outlines, and the dirt cleared, make sure you've gone down a few inches into the soil. I'd strongly suggest about 5-6 inches deep to ensure you have enough room to put in good solid rocks.

The next step you want to take is deciding how much you had intended to spend on the pathway. If you want it to be very professional looking and have perfect matching stones, then you may need to up your budget and call a landscaping business for the rock. * Warning of Caution, they tend to charge by the pound, which can get extremely expensive.
Also depending on the size of the walkway and the budget you have, you may consider calling a local trucking company and pricing out how much it would cost to have them bring you the gravel and sand you need. If it's a small pathway, or even a long one, sometimes its less headache to just have them bring you a pick up truck sized load of gravel and sand. Place the loose gravel and sand on tarps, to prevent losing it in the grass, or digging up grass when shoveling the aggregates.

If you're more adventurous and frugal, like myself, you may not care about doing the work yourself, and there's where the savings comes in, along with the Human Ingenuity.  I live in an area where there are mass rock cliffs, sand piles, and gravel pits, so doing the work merely takes me finding what I need and using my brain and muscles. This also leads you to exploring the world around you a bit, and sometimes it can be an awesome relaxing weekend on some back roads, scouting rocks with your fiance. You may even see some great wild life like the Canadian Goose on a grass field that was about the same size as my 110lb American bulldog. *DO NOT APPROACH WILDLIFE, IT'S WILD!

Now, I have searched to find out if picking rocks off the sides of road ways is illegal or not, and to be honest I have not found a definite answer. So I say this instead, *If you are going to do so, find a nice quiet backroad. DO NOT PICK ROCKS OFF MAJOR HIGHWAYS. It's dangerous, Disruptive to traffic, and Illegal to block a Highway. Use common sense.

While picking the rocks, look for ones that have a good size to them, are thick, and have a nice sized flattened area (If you want a flat walkway), or some people may like nice Round Stone walkways, and may want nice sized round rocks. I prefer flat ridged ones, as I find they lock in place nicer.

When you get home, lay out your rocks with the flat side you liked, facing up. Space them into the pathway the way you would want them as well, to ensure you have enough, Like this:
If you don't want weeds growing up through, you can put plastic lining under neath the rocks. If you want grass to grow though, I'd avoid it.

After you placed your stones in there, all nice and neat, take them back out. You wanted to ensure you had enough rocks, but once you know you have enough, and a few extra, take them back out and line the bottom with the fine gravel you got. You should rake the gravel to be nice and even on the bottom, ensuring it's a couple inches thick all over.
Now you place the rocks back in where you had them. This allows the rocks to be placed in, and shifted up or down a bit as needed to ensure it's all closely level with the ground around it. The fine gravel allows some shifting, but also holds rocks you placed already nice and steady, just don't walk on them yet. So go

Once everything is back into place the way you wanted it, take your sand, and put it on top. It does not need to be nice and neat yet, you want to get the sane in there and around all of the stones. Once you have it all shoveled in, take your broom, and sweep the stones, getting it cleared off. Sweeping the sand, allows it to be pushed into all the fine little nooks and cranny's to hold the rocks in place.

Finally, you're going to take your hose again, and connect it to the outdoor faucet. You want to wet the sand in, and soak it. The water helps to pull down all the sand into the areas you cant see, and makes it nice and tight. It will settle and pack into place this way leaving a bit of extra room between the stones, which is alright. Once you have some extra space about half an inch thick around all the rocks, you can add your top soil, mulch, peastone, etc. to finish it off. This allows channels for the finish to stick in between, or for grass to grow.

The effect is beautiful, and if you wanted plants to grow in between the rock, it will not have some of the best soil and drainage possible. You also have the satisfaction of a job well done, and a stunning look around your yard. 

Depending on the materials you used, and where you found them, this may cost you nothing more than a tank of gas, and some manual labor. My walkway cost me about $10 total, and with a little help from my fiance, took no more than a weekend to put in. I finished mine with some clover, and it's awesome.

Enjoy!!!!