Inexpensive sloping walkway material?

Question

A grouping of our sprinklers went out while we were on vacation so we came home to a large dead patch in our front lawn. Because our area is facing drought and water is at a premium we thought we'd go ahead and install the walkway to our front door that we've always talked about, rather than replace the grass (the dead patch being pretty much exactly where the walkway will go). But being as this is a spontaneous project we have a small budget.

The yard is not steep but it does slope a fair amount. The pathway would be a few feet wide and about 12 feet long. We were hoping to avoid steps (cost and amount of work involved). Is that wise? We were thinking decomposed granite since that would allow us to dig it up if there were problems with the irrgation pipes that run below it, or if we wanted to change it to something nicer in the long run. I didn't know how well decomposed granite would work on a slope.

Any other material suggestions or advice appreciated.

Answer 1

If there are construction landfills around your area, you can go and get bricks from a demolished building. Takes a little work cleaning them up, but they work great...and free. It's also recycyling.

A pallet of flagstone is also not that expensive and easy to install. You can either mortar the joints or use a polymeric sand.

You could also buy some used rail road ties and bury them in the ground. You can get these in 2', 4', 6' and 8' sections.

If it's sloping I would worry about anyhing that may erode with rainfall.