I’m very unfamiliar with concrete and designing pathways in general! if you guys have any tips or would be able to explain how I can accomplish making this on my own. I would really really appreciate some advice! Thanks for your time! My first thought was maybe making a slab mold of concrete and then maybe creating a shape in metal or some sort of something that I can press into the concrete for the petals when it’s curing maybe I’m not sure I’m completely out of my element lol.
by ChenaeLoren707
13 Comments
The picture shows all natural stone. It might be more forgiving and easy to plan progress with the natural stone. Concrete has a time limit to work with and no color like natural stone does.
This looks so fun to look at and a nightmare to walk on. Like it needs to be a fake path in some garden you. Ever use
Plan on spending countless hours digging through giant piles of rocks at your local supplier. This is called pebble stone walkways. I’ve wanted to do this as a side project for years but it involves a lot of bucket hunting stones.
Setting them is easy but also time consuming.
First things first that picture is an AI generated fantasy. If you actually poured loose river rock flush against grass like that you would be replacing a shattered window the first time you ran a lawnmower. Those smooth dark stones will migrate right into the turf and roll under your feet like marbles. I inspect yards all the time where folks see a cool picture online buy a ton of rock and end up with a massive headache. That is exactly why I run these ideas through visualization software first to catch structural disasters before anyone opens their wallet.
Forget pouring individual concrete petals with custom metal forms. They will crack heave and look like a bad craft project after one winter. If you are dead set on this daisy design you need to build it as a rigid surface. You have to excavate down about six inches lay and compact a crushed gravel base and then set real flagstone and pebbles into a wet mortar bed. It is called pebble mosaic. It locks everything in place so you actually have a solid walkable path instead of a loose gravel trap.
You also absolutely need a hard edge between this path and the lawn. You can use steel edging or a concrete border but you need a physical barrier to keep the grass roots out and the pathway in. Do not skip the foundation work. A pretty design built straight on top of bare dirt will sink and spread out within a year. Put your money and sweat into a compacted sub base first.
You could do that in concrete if you had experience using concrete. If you don’t, then stay away from concrete. Its heavy and difficult to dispose off if you mess up.
That is rock work, and it isnt necessary difficult to do, but that round river rock is expensive. Check rock stores in your area for price. The petals look like flag stone, cheap, but to get them all similar sized and color, you probably need to buy a whole pallet and be familiar with cutting them to size. The yellow center rocks will be difficult to source and will be expensive. Maybe those can be concrete and should be easy to make.
I cant tell if this is an AI Pic, but that looks like a full time maintenance nightmare. Keeping weeds off will require gallons and gallons of elbow grease. You cant use chemicals if you want to keep the grass.
Its beautiful, more like a labor of love.
Ooh, that rocks!
This is a terrible idea.
If you are really sold on it, lay a super basic pathway somewhere out of the way to test yourself. The unevenness will cause issues
Take a look at pebble mosiacs and apply what you find there to a larger project. I did a slab last year that’s about 9 feet by 15 feet for the base of my pergola and I think it looks fantastic. However, it took me the entire summer, and had a learning curve(I am not handy at all)
I cannot wait to spend my summer sitting on it. Not difficult to walk on at all, I can do it in bare feet.
Avoid sponsoring a website that uses AI pictures on its website
Turning a 8 hour project into a 30 hour project.
I rolled my ankle just looking at that
Looks like a tripping hazard which I always find more annoying than dangerous. Your base is going to determine 90% of your success on a project like this with different material thickness.
The yellow centers can actually be made with concrete, need stain and a big plastic bag. Stain the concrete, fill the bag w said concrete, and let it set. Will take some experimenting to get the size and shape right but totally doable