Marking the transition from one garden space to another often calls for a change underfoot.

This path, designed by landscape architect Tito Patri, serves that purpose. It passes first through a “controlled” part of the garden and then into the “uncontrolled” native landscape.

In the formal part of the garden, Patri hand-set Indian basalt cobbles into crushed granite, spacing them closely together. Then, as the path enters the natural landscape, the cobbles are spaced farther and ­farther apart until they ultimately give way to an expanse of the crushed granite.

Patri earned an Award of Excellence for this imaginative design in Sunset’s 2004–2005 Western Garden Design Awards program.

Path trick