Hello all. I've been lurking here for a few days, picking up information
for our 1st garden landscaping adventure. It's a great group.

We're planning a gravel path from the back door leading into the garden
and to a patio area big enough for a table and chairs. Beyond is a lawn.
We've removed old paving slabs leading away from the house and have dug
up the turf where the patio is to go. We've worked out that we need to
dig down all over about 100mm and fill in with about 90mm of sub-base
which will compact down to about 75mm. On top of that will go 1" of
sharp sand where the patio will be which will be levelled of with an
appropriate fall. Then paving slabs of some description on top. Then
we'll put down about 30mm of gravel for the path which will butt up to
the patio on 2 edges.

My questions;

1. I have gathered all the information so far from the web and this
group. Some people say to tamp down the sand before laying the paving
slabs and some say not to. Which do I do? Obviously I'd rather not if
it's not essential! Do you tamp the sand down if you are going to use
mortar to lay the slabs? I was thinking of just laying them down on the
sand.

2. I thought we would do the patio 1st. Do I need to 'box in' the sand I
put down so that when I lay the slabs the sand at the edges doesn't
trickle away over time? There will be edging (still undecided on what
exactly) all round the path and between the patio and the lawn but I'm
not sure what to do where the patio meets the gravel path.

3. Does my plan above look okay? Have I missed anything? Incidentally,
I'll let the price settle the membrane/fabric argument - if it's cheap
enough I'll use it anyway, if it's expensive enough I'll consider it a
waste of time.

Many thanks to anyone who can help - my head's swimming with all the
info on the internet!

Iain