advice on making slate path in garden

1jim

Hi

Parts of our back garden get very wet/boggy when it rains, to counteract this and to make things a little easier I was thinking of making a slate path around the edges of the lawn (with raised sleeper beds on one side which are already there and lawn on the other with some kind of stone edging). My plan was to dig down a good distance and remove the soil and into the clay base, i was then planning to fill part of this with roadstone or similar, followed by a weed suppresent membrane(not sure if this is needed though but thought it might keep the slate and stone seperate) and then topped up with a good depth of slate. Can anyone see any problems with this design? would this help with drainage (I think it must help at least a little??) also do I need to compact the roadstone and if I do will this reduce ther drainage abaility?
thanks
Jim

thebaldwindowfitter

you need to get below the solid clay line to give any benefit we have just done this recently and needed a mini digger .actually went down 6 ft .the trench we then filled with broken bricks etc you dont compact the stone /brick

Vibrant

You could make a soak away to reduce the wetness of your garden. Look here for some ideas (about half way down):
http://www.hintsandthings.co.uk/garden/lawndrainage.htm

I did this in my parents water logged garden, it worked very well. Digging the big hole was the hardest bit. The garden was fairly flat, so I just made gravel filled channels around the garden that led to the hole, seemed to do the job.
It was quite good fun, a bit like being a kid at the seaside, especially making tunnels under the paths with a bit of guttering drain pipe.

1jim

thanks, will make a start on this path soon, dont really want to have to dig up most of the garden for the soakaway if I can get away with it so will see how the path works out first I think
thanks your advice guys

1jim

Hi Guys
Have dug out the path now, my plan is to lay pea gravel (10mm size) as the base as I thought that might be better for drainage than the road stone. I was then going to lay a membrane between this and the gravel. As i have dug down some way I thought I might have around 15-20cm gravel and around 5-10 cm of slate, does this sound ok?
Should I lay a membrane down on the clay base before adding the gravel as well?
thanks for your advice
Jim