My son is redoing his backyard in native california plants. We ripped up all the old concrete walkways and replaced them with 3/8 washed river rock. The river rock is miserable to walk on as it rolls around under your feet and is impossible to roll wheel barrows or dolleys over. My thoughts are to add sand on top of the rock and use the hose to wash the sand down into the rock and it will hopefully lock them in place and give a firmer walkway. I see nothing in nature paths that roll around under your feet. He insists that the sand would change the look and not work anyway. I say it will not change the look but tighten up the walkway. Does anyone here have any experience with this?
I think it’s more typical to put down a layer of sand first and then put the gravel on top. Or even better use a paver base. The polymeric sands will sort of cement together. The paver base in bags is just a mix of gravel and sand - this mix of different sizes compacts very well and helps hold whatever is on top in place. It won’t take much rock on top to hide the paver base.
I agree with you, that was my first suggestion, but he allready has the rock down now and is not willing to move it. It made a terrible walkway. We have some more walks to do and I will insist we do it the way you are suggesting. I don’t think it would look bad even if the sand did show through at the top.
I made the same mistake, put in heavy duty edging and 3/8 crushed limestone and didn’t like walking on it so I pulled the gravel back and set in 1 1/2" irregular flagstone as stepping stones, the combination looks good and is a lot more practical.