I am always fascinated with paths and I really love mosaics. There are some nice ones here. It's interesting that they offer classes.

Here's a designer that has several examples of garden path mosaics on her/his website. You have to go to the sample gardens, and there are 3 or 4 different pebble mocaic designs as well as one shot of one of them going in. Look under A Garden of Rooms, Victorian Garden, Memorial Garden, and Other Gardens.

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardenscape Design

Babs, I didn't see this until today. It is very good technique, but I find it too distracting. Of the 4 different rooms, I guess I like the one with the fern design the best, but still I'm not that fond of the dark and stark white with a busy design as in the long walkway with the three black circles down the middle in one of the gardens. I prefer the subtle textures and a small application of mosaic in natural beige and brown tones for paths. Something that would be a surprising detail rather than the main event.

That path is really stunning - you see a lot of that kind of mosaic design in paving in Brazil and southern Europe, in black and white, just like this. I agree that it looks a little ... overdone in this small garden. Cool idea, though!

I'm just catching up with these threads, thanks for posting these, nhbabs!

dtd, thank you for improving upon my post. I just read mine again and It really is gorgeous work and I don't know why I didn't make that clear. I can see how it would work really well in another application. It would be very interesting to see how they have incorporated that into more design in other countries.

I also find the patterns with more subtle color contrast appealing, but the idea of a vine (perhaps one less symmetrical) that winds along a garden path is really nice to contemplate. I can see the greater color contrasts working in an area with Mediterranean plants and stucco walls a bit better or even a courtyard without too many plants and a formal setup.

Though I couldn't find any images of it, I have in the past seen a path or patio made with different colors of brick & tile, all in rusts and browns, that made me think of an oriental rug. It had the border and then patterns within, but the limited color palette made it just lovely. I could also see having a mosaic with at least one bright color - blue, orange or red - in some settings, though I'd have to think about how to make it work in my quite rural setting.

There are also a few lovely mosaics in these images from Bali in Michelle Derviss's blog that I also linked on the 'Web Design Resources' thread, "Garden Porn." One of the things I really like about the blog is that she has such an eye for good design and the photography skills to bring out the beauty that she sees. There are also a few other mosaic styles and techniques that she has incorporated in her work scattered throughout the blog, including a glass mosaic over a painted background for a fountain she made for the San Francisco garden show and a pebbled mosaic in an entrance courtyard to create separation from the driveway if I remember correctly.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bali - deviantdeziner.blogspot

Here's another designer, based in Portland, who does lots of stone and mosaic work, particularly pebble mosaic in paths, fountains, etc. Much of his seems rather over the top to me, but there are a few that I found really appealing.

Here is a link that might be useful: Jeffrey Bale Design

Here is an absolutely stunning example of mosaic in the landscape on the risers of a set of public steps. I love how the plantings and the mosaic work together to make what had the potential to be a quite stark area instead quite lovely. The link below has a bunch of photos, mostly from a distance, and this site has only closeups:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericinsf/sets/72157622812416774/
(& EricinSF has many lovely plant photos, which is how I happened upon this mosaic project.)

One of the sites mentions that the artists who coordinated it, Collette Crutcher and Aileen Barr, used many of the folks in the neighborhood to help.

Here is a link that might be useful: 16th Avenue steps, San Francisco