Start with the shape of the walk

A sensory path is not a route from A to B; it is an invitation to slow down. Before you dig anything, walk the space at dusk and note where the light falls, where the wind moves and where the ground already drains well. Then sketch a gentle curve — two or three soft bends rather than one straight line — so the eye is drawn forward and the feet follow without hurry. Keep the path at least 90cm wide, or 120cm if two people are likely to walk it together, and leave a resting place at the halfway point: a bench, a broad flat stone, a simple timber seat. End the route somewhere worth arriving at — a small pond, a heavily scented shrub, a view back towards the house.

Lay a surface that talks back

Your feet are the first sense to engage, so choose materials that change underfoot and announce themselves. A 10mm pea gravel laid about 5cm deep over a firm, compacted sub-base gives that satisfying crunch and drains freely. Use different materials in short stretches to mark the journey: self-binding gravel for a firm, quiet section, timber sleepers set flush with the soil, a few reclaimed cobbles or slate paddles, bark chippings where you want a softer, hushier tread. Avoid large loose stones that roll underfoot in the dark, and anything slippery when wet.

Edge the path with something you can feel with a toe — reclaimed brick, a low timber board, or a band of creeping thyme — so you can find the edge without looking down. If you have room, make one short stretch deliberately varied in texture: a run of moss, then gravel, then smooth stone. The change tells you where you are without a single sign.

Plant for the hours after dusk

Evening scent is a different pleasure from daytime scent. Many flowers release their fragrance after dusk to attract moths, and that is exactly what you want along a path you walk at nine or ten o'clock. Plant them at the edge of the route, in drifts, so you brush against them as you pass.

• Night-scented stock — modest by day, extraordinary after dark.
• Tobacco plant — tall, white, sweet and generous well into the evening.
• Evening primrose — pale yellow flowers that open as the light fades.
• Sweet rocket — cottage-garden reliability with a soft, violet-like perfume.
• Honeysuckle and jasmine — climbers for a pergola or fence, both stronger at night.
• Lavender, thyme, rosemary and lemon balm — low herbs that release oil when brushed.

Group scented plants in pockets rather than scattering them singly; in still evening air, scent pools and travels along the path. Add pale and silver foliage — lamb's ear, artemisia, white foxgloves, cream roses — because white reflects what little light there is and glows softly against the dark.

Light it so the darkness survives

Good evening lighting is about guidance, not illumination. Choose warm-white fittings, 2700K or lower, keep the output low, and shield every light so it points down at the path rather than out into the garden. Bollard lights at hip height, small stake lights tucked into planting, or a single step light at a change of level will do far more than a floodlight ever will.

Use timers or motion sensors so the garden returns to genuine darkness after eleven, and never light a continuous corridor. Bats, moths and hedgehogs all suffer from light spill, so leave gaps of true dark between fittings and keep bright light away from hedges, ponds and mature trees. If you want a moonlit effect, plant silver-leaved subjects in the brightest patch and let the sky do the rest of the work.

Make room for the night shift

An evening garden becomes a wildlife garden if you let it. Moths pollinate your night-scented flowers, and bats hunt the moths. A pile of logs in a damp corner, a little leaf litter left under a hedge, and a shallow dish of water with a few pebbles as escape ramps will all help. Leave a 13cm gap at the base of fences as a hedgehog highway, and skip the slug pellets and sprays altogether — a garden that is tidy to the last leaf is a garden with nothing left to eat.

A small water feature, even a buried bucket with a gentle trickle, adds sound to the path, and sound is one of the most underrated sensory pleasures of a garden after dark. Resist the urge to deadhead everything in autumn; seed heads catch the low light and feed the birds that arrive at first frost.

Finish with somewhere to sit

Every good walk needs a pause. Put a bench where the path turns, facing back along the route or towards the scented border. Surround it with grasses — Stipa tenuissima and Molinia caerulea work beautifully in most British gardens — that move and rustle in the slightest breeze and hold the last of the light. Then simply sit for ten minutes at dusk, without a phone or a task, and let the path do its work.