Planning Sidewalks And Planting Beds (How Big Do Planting Beds Need To Be?)

I started with my landscape design as a reference. On the landscape design, the designer has the walkways coming off of the front sidewalk covering the curved area of the main sidewalk.

I had always envisioned those gentle curves continuing and veering off into the side walkways. But when I marked that off, I didn’t really like it.

So instead of trying to continue the curve, I ended up coming straight off of that point where the curve meets the corner on the sidewalk. I liked that look much better.

But one thing I’m still not sure about is the placement of the walkways. Here’s a closer view of how the designer arranged the walkways coming off of the sidewalk. You can see that the walkways connect at the curve.

I don’t dislike that, but the issue is that if I go with that plan, that gives me a planting bed in front of the porch with a depth of about nine feet. That seems like a really deep planting bed to me.

If I go the opposite direction with the walkway, that gives me a planting bed that is about five feet deep. That seems more manageable to me.

But I don’t have any experience with planting beds, so I’d love your input. Larger planting beds means less yard/grass to take care of, and I do like that idea. But nine feet just seems extreme to me.

I’ve enhanced my paint lines in some of these pictures so that you can see them better. Hopefully you can see this one with just the paint lines so that you can see how the walkway would curve around the area in front of the breakfast room windows.

And then I would have another five-foot-deep (or nine-foot-deep) planting bed in front of the studio, depending on if I keep the walkway where it’s marked off now or move it towards the street like the designer shows on the landscape plan.

If I go with the five-foot depth, the walkway coming off the sidewalk would look like this as you’re approaching the front door.

And the other side is where it gets tricky. If I stick with that five-foot depth for the planting beds in front of the front porch and my walk-in closet window, the pad that is poured for the steps to the bedroom would look something like this so that it meets the walkway. Keep in mind that I’m limited in the width because of the cleanout for the sewer line and the gas meter.

Just a note: The walkway won’t dead end at the end of the house. It will curve around to the side of the house, but I ran out of spray paint and daylight, so I stopped at the end of the house.

If I go with the nine-foot depth for the planting beds, that pad for the steps ridiculously long. It’s very hard to tell if this would actually look awkward or if it would look nice. With it just being orange lines, it looks crazy to me. But I’m sure once it’s done, and there’s just concrete and no orange lines, it would just look like a normal walkway leading to some steps and a door. It’s just hard for me to picture in my mind.