- Set stepping stones level with the soil along the route everyone walks, and the grass beside them gets a rest from the boots that wore it bare.
- Dig each hole 2cm (about 3/4in) deeper than the stone and add a layer of sharp sand, so the top sits just below the soil and your mower passes straight over it.
- Sow seed in the gaps once the soil allows, and the mud strip turns into a green path of stones by spring.
The Strip Across Your Lawn Is Not Going to Grow Back by Itself
You know the one. Someone cut the corner in September, then everyone followed, and now there is a brown stripe from the back door to the shed that turns to brown porridge after every wet week. You have probably thrown seed at it once already.
Stop treating the strip as lawn. It is a path, and people will keep using it whatever you sow. The fix takes an afternoon: stepping stones, set level with the soil, at the length of your stride. Winter weather is the job’s best argument. Wet soil is at its worst, so the damage is at its worst, and the stones take the load off the ground at the exact moment it cannot cope.
The RHS gives the same short answer for a lawn that gets damaged and muddy from being walked over regularly in wet weather: lay stepping stones across it, level with the soil surface so they do not interfere with mowing. Below is how to do that without the stones rocking, tripping you or wrecking the mower, and how to get thick grass on either side by spring.
Why One Strip Fails Before the Rest of the Lawn
A lawn copes with some walking. It stops coping when the same few feet of it take every step, in every kind of weather.
Grass grows from the crown, a low knot at the base of the plant, and the blades above it are what you see. Boots on wet soil press that crown and the soil beneath it. Compacted soil holds less air and drains poorly, and the RHS lists spiking compacted lawns as the way to improve the movement of air and water among the grass roots. In a trodden strip the opposite happens. Water has nowhere to go, so it sits at the surface, and every step churns that water and soil into mud. Roots that sit in soil with little air do not grow well, so the grass thins, the soil bares and the next step makes more mud. Each wet week makes the track worse than the last.
Frost adds a second kind of damage. Grass blades go brittle in the cold, and walking on a frosty lawn can damage them. It leaves brown footprints that take a while to disappear, as covered in brown footprints after the first frosts. On a shortcut those footprints land in the same place every day, so there is never a week for the blades to recover.
Bare ground then brings a third problem. Repairing worn patches helps stop unwanted weeds colonising bare areas, and a muddy strip is bare ground with fresh soil turned over daily. Left alone through winter, the track is a seed bed for whatever blows in.
A stone changes the arithmetic. It spreads a footstep over a flat surface that does not compress, does not crush crowns and does not turn to mud. The soil beside it gets to rest.
Choose the Route and the Stones
Put the stones where people actually walk, not where you wish they would. If the shortcut runs from the back door to the shed, the path goes from the back door to the shed. A neat curve nobody follows leaves you with stones and a new muddy track beside them.
Lay the stones out on the surface first. Gardeners’ World advises marking out the path and laying every stone in place to check the spacing before you dig anything. Then walk it at your normal pace, carrying a bucket or a bag of shopping if that is what the route sees. If you have to shorten or stretch your step to land on a stone, move the stone. Anyone in a hurry or in the dark will skip a badly spaced stone and step on the grass, and you are back where you started.
Choose stones that are attractive and practical to walk on. A stone big enough to take your whole boot is safer than one your heel hangs off.
Set the Stones Level, Step by Step
You need a garden fork, a spade, a rubber mallet, a cane, a riddle (a garden sieve), a soft brush and some sharp sand. Do the work in a mild spell, when the soil is not waterlogged and the weather is not very wet, snowy or frosty. Soaked soil is the problem you are trying to fix, so do not add to it.
**Step one: loosen the ground.** With the stones laid out, loosen any compacted soil with a garden fork, removing stones and roots as you find them.
**Step two: dig the holes.** Dig a hole for each stone that measures 2cm (about 3/4in) deeper than the thickness of the stone. Do not guess. A hole cut too shallow leaves the stone proud of the turf, and a blade that hits a proud stone is a damaged blade at best.
**Step three: add the sand.** Spread a 1.5cm (about 5/8in) layer of sharp sand in the base of each hole. The sand gives the stone a firm, flat bed to sit on.
**Step four: bed the stone.** The stones should lie just below the level of the surrounding soil so that you can mow over them, rather than having to go around. Tap each one down firmly with the rubber mallet. Use the mallet, not your boot, so the stone goes down evenly.
**Step five: check with a cane.** Lay a cane across the stone and look at the gap. The stone should sit lower than the level of your lawn, so the mower blades pass over it. If the cane touches the stone, or the stone stands above the grass, lift it and take out some sand. Fix it before you fill in around it: a stone the mower finds in June costs far more than the minute this check takes.
**Step six: fill the gaps.** Use the riddle to shake soil into the gaps around each stone, and push it down firmly with your fingers so that there are no spaces around the edges. A gap lets the stone shift, and a ring of hollow around it is where the next puddle forms.
Seed the Gaps and Mow Over the Stones
Gently loosen the soil around the stones with a rake and scatter a mixture of riddled soil and grass seed over it, spreading it with a soft brush. Water it well unless rain is imminent. You can plant low-growing alpines, or similar plants, between the stones instead, which suits a spot you would rather not mow.
Choose the seed with care. A hard-wearing utility lawn seed mix suits a lawn that takes heavy wear, and a path is exactly that. Follow the rate on the packet, which for repairs is usually about 15g to 25g per square metre (1/2oz to 3/4oz per square yard). Scatter the seed on the soil between the stones, not on the stones.
Timing depends on your climate. Early November is not too late to sow lawn seed. In cold weather or colder areas, wait until March or April. In a cold spot, set the stones now, leave the gaps as bare soil or a neat layer of riddled soil, and sow when the soil warms. The stones do their job from the day they go in.
Newly sown grass dries out until it is well rooted, so water regularly if rain is short over the following months.
For the mowing, grass keeps growing in temperatures above 7°C (45°F), so mow in mild weather if you need to, but raise the cutting height to about 5mm (1/4in) higher than in summer. With the stones below the soil surface, the mower runs straight over them and you cut the whole lawn in one pass.
A fuller walk through overseeding a thin, worn lawn covers the seed in more detail.
How to Stop the Mud Coming Back, and When a Proper Path Wins
The stones only work if people use them. After the job, watch where feet go for a week. If the family still cuts a corner between two stones, add one more stone there. A shortcut that follows the real route needs stones on the real route.
Watch the grass either side as it thickens. Dig out any weeds that appear by hand. Keep the cutting height up through winter, then drop it again as growth picks up in spring.
If a stone settles or rocks after a wet spell, top up the sand beneath it, tap it level again and run the cane across to test it.
Check the soil in spring. If the ground between and around the stones is still hard and slow to drain, spiking it with a garden fork will let air and water in, and how to aerate a hard, compacted lawn walks through the job.
Know when grass is the wrong answer. If the route carries a wheelbarrow, a pushchair or a lot of daily traffic, stones set at a stride leave the verges taking a beating. That is the time to lay a proper path of paving or a solid surface instead of fighting the lawn. Stones in grass suit a route walked a handful of times a day. A heavier route wants a hard surface from end to end, and a local landscaper or paving contractor can quote for it.
For most gardens the afternoon with a spade is enough. Lay the stones, bed them level, seed the gaps, and by spring the shortcut is a line of stones across thick green grass.
