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Garden Paths for the Disabled

© Diana Pederson

To be able to enjoy your garden, you need to be able to move through it easily. For this reason, if you or your loved ones and friends are disabled, it is important to carefully consider the type of paths you use in your garden. Traditional garden paths are grass or something like chipped wood. Neither of these presents the smooth surface necessary for a wheelchair, cane, crutches, or walker user. Let's look at some options that make aesthetically pleasing paths that are functional for the mobility impaired person.

Gene Rothert, President of the American Horticultural Therapy Association outlines some things to consider in The Enabling Garden. Although he has spent his entire horticultural career in a wheelchair, he is the manager for Urban Horticulture at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Here are some things he feels should be carefully considered when creating a garden path to be used by disabled people.

Path Design Considerations

1. Paths must provide a level, firm walking surface. Loose materials such as wood chips or soft materials like grass are inappropriate because these items make using a wheelchair extremely difficult.

2. Create surfaces that provide good traction. Wood can be especially dangerous because of algae growth or ice build up in the winter. Any surface that allows water to puddle on the surface is dangerous.

3. Most yards or gardens have some slope to them. This means the paths slope. Easy mobility using various assistive devices require that the slope be no more than 5% per foot. If the yard drops two feet from one end of the garden to the other, it will take 40 feet for the path to drop from the high end to the low end. Using steps to accomplish this slope change is not appropriate because they create another barrier for a mobility impaired person.

4. Another critical factor is the width of the path. A wheelchair takes more space than a person simply walking down the path. The recommended minimum width is 3 feet but this is tight and assumes that the footrest of the chair can hang over the edge of the path. Gene Rothert points out that the width of the path needed partially depends on the height of the person who is in the wheelchair. He suggests that a 5 foot wide path for turning the wheelchair around is the minimum required. If wheelchairs are to pass on the path, or a person is walking beside the chair, it is not unreasonable to have a 6-7 foot wide path.

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