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Planning Your Garden
Another point to be considered in the making of a grass plot is its level relative to the adjacent paths. It is not unusual to find paths sunk so much below the grass level that the soil is exposed beneath the turf. This allows soil to break away, or be washed out by the rain, to the detriment of the path. It also involves additional labour in trimming the grass edges. There is no need to allow more elevation to the turf than is sufficient to ensure the mower clearing the gravel when used on the edge of the grass, and if this rule is followed there is no danger of gravel straying on to the grass. From two to three inches is quite enough. In practice, the question is most likely to present itself in connection with path making, when the gravel surface would have to be regulated to ensure the above result.
When it is a case of grass in juxtaposition to soil, as in the making of beds, the rule does not call for such stringent observation, but to satisfy the eye the grass edge should not stand higher than three inches above the soil. If much less there is the danger of soil and stones working on to the grass.
Grass Paths and Edgings — Though grass is unsuited for paths, there are cases in which it may be used, as, for instance, when an alternative path of gravel exists. I have seen the grass path installed with excellent effect in the kitchen garden, where it gives quite a distinctive and finished appearance to that department. In the case to which I allude the ground had quite recently been meadowland, and the vegetable beds had just been cut in the turf, allowing main paths five feet wide, with narrower connecting paths of half that width. I cannot commend it as economical of space, but where there is ample room this use of grass has its advantages on the score of appearance, and is highly preferable to the usual cinder path, which requires that an edging be provided.
The grass path also may have its utility in the flower garden, though it usually comes into existence by some adventitious circumstance rather than by design. A border skirting grass may have opposed to it a long bed, and the gardener may decide to connect the two by a pergola. This at once turns the intervening grass strip into a path, and a very charming one, where the walker may find a tunnel of greenery, his feet on verdant turf, a canopy of blossom overhead. Grass edgings are used in both flower and kitchen gardens, and I have already referred to them by the term "verge." Each gardener will decide for himself whether the space at his disposal admits of such a feature, and whether the effect to be obtained from it is commensurate with the labour involved in keeping it trimmed.
