With the garden tour happening the next day, we decided that the paths should have some kind of relatively level walking surface. So, instead of relaxing and letting our muscles recover from the previous work, we moved two yards of road base, tamped it down and wet it to reduce dust.
The road base should theoretically allow us to complete the patio with less decorative gravel since we only have to add one to two inches to come up to the top of the bender board. We’re trying this with filter fabric and without, to see if the two types of gravel mix over time. Hopefully the filter fabric will prevent this from happening, but it could also become visible in spots and need to be covered.
Another benefit is that since road base is designed to be compacted almost solid, our feet won’t sink into the gravel. The drawback is that it’s less permeable than pure gravel, although water does slowly seep through it.
Setting the concrete pieces in road base works well, too. They don’t wobble since road base doesn’t slide around.