FedEx is My Landscape Designer
How a "desire path" led me to rethink our front garden
The UPS and FedEx delivery people are collaborators in our garden. They aren’t knowing participants but every time they’ve jogged up the slope in front of our house – skipping the stairs at the corner to save some time – they were creating a pathway.
When we first moved into our house that front slope was all lawn. We smothered the grass that first year and planted one half of the slope with fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica) and the other half with northern bush honeysuckle (Diervilla lonicera). Those shrubs have grown in beautifully except for the two-foot seam in between where the constant shortcutting has led to a compacted, muddy mess.
I stand at the front window and watch them in their brown or purple-accented uniforms as they race up that slope delivering plant books (for me) or yarn (for Brooke). I realize this pathway is a direct result of all the online shopping we do. If there were a yarn store nearby maybe this wouldn’t be a problem.
These types of unplanned routes are referred to as “desire paths” and as this article from the University of Wisconsin explains, “they are living histories of travelers wandering off pavement, forming shortcuts, carving their own trails and recreating their communities.” The article mentions German physics professor, Dirk Helbing, who discovered through his research, “that travelers will form a desire path if the prescribed route is 20 to 30 percent longer.” These folks making deliveries are definitely shortening their route by a significant percentage when they race up our slope. The article lays out how some desire paths have become permanent:
Many of the roads we drive our cars on today were once old trade routes oriented along the quickest cross-national routes, Helbing added, meaning even in our cars we are following the desire paths of others. Broadway, following the “Native American-made Wickquasgeck Path, which is thought to have been the shortest route between pre-colonial settlements in Manhattan that avoided swamps and hills,” is believed to be the oldest desire path in the U.S.
If we’re not careful this steep, muddy path cutting right through our front yard could be the next leg of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It was time to take action.
I tried to cover our improvised path with branches I’d collected around the neighborhood but that didn’t deter the people delivering vintage floral handkerchiefs (for me) and paint pens (for Brooke). I’d have to do something more drastic if I wanted to reintegrate this barren patch into our garden.
I settled on installing a series of rocks, resembling steps, in the problem area. I recruited our friend Ben to help me schlep and arrange the stones. In around an hour we moved four of them into place, carefully digging them into the hillside. I didn’t want everybody taking these steps. I didn’t know how sturdy they would be and didn’t know how much traffic they could handle. I figured the FedEx employee would use them as steps – they were already going that way – but I wanted friends and neighbors to see the space as a creative rock installation and continue to the corner steps.
An overnight rainfall washed the loose dirt away and helped the rocks settle in. They were sturdier than I expected. The next day I watched a delivery person race up the rocks to drop off a packet of cucumber seeds (for, well, you know who those are for).
With these rocks catching the footfalls of our delivery folks, I’ll finally be able to fill in this bare section of the garden with plantings. I’ve already put in a few cuttings from a creeping phlox that grows in the tufa rock garden that frames our front steps (that the FedEx employee has probably never used). Now I’m on the lookout for other groundcovers that could surround the rocks and play nice with the neighboring bush honeysuckle and fragrant sumac. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
Sometimes garden inspiration comes from a photo in a magazine or a unique plant in a catalog. Sometimes inspiration comes from a delivery person creating a muddy path up your front yard.
Have you ever dealt with “desire paths” in your garden? I’d love to hear about it.
And one more thing: Dutch photographer Jan Dirk van der Burg has a great collection of photos of desire paths – called olifantenpaadjes in Dutch – from around the Netherlands. You can see those photos here.
When a new school was built at UCLA (I think) the architect didn't specify any paths--he let the kids go where they needed for a semester, then put the walkways in.
I like Chamomile, Pennyroyal, and Creeping/Woolly Thyme together for a fragrant planting between steps.
Creative solution...and it looks great. You might sample some Elfin Thyme, which works well in my rock wall; good erosion control, and friendly bees love it when the plants bloom with tiny blue flowers (haven't been stung yet!). No maintenance, except to cut away some if it spreads too much (slow process of spreading). Cut portions easily removed and plopped somewhere else. It's cushion-like and no harm to walk on now and then. Grows low to the ground.