When you need an aesthetically pleasing way to ferry water from your rain gutter into your food forest or garden and also happen to be getting rid of a rotting, wood fence, you can merge two purposes the permaculture way by using your old wood fence panels as a pathway. Then, as the fence panels are eaten by worms and become soil, they will improve the passing of water from your rain gutter and rain garden and transfer more and more water into your food forest or garden by way of your worm compost passageway. 

I further supported the redirection of this rain water by adding water loving plants that include banana plants,  Japanese Maple trees, the Golden Hawaiian clumping bamboo, and Baby Panda Grass. The roots of these plants will grow into the pathway to start wicking up water beneath the old wooden fence where the roots will remain unseen. 

Definitely one of the easiest pathways to maintain as it does not include removing heavy stones or sharp, splintering wood. You also won't have to weed it as long as you are able to add to it every so often to smother out anything that attempts to pop up. You simply add more logs or additional rotting fencing on top of where the old wooden pathway has broken down. 

Of course, you don't have to update or maintain your pathway at all. In the fall when the leaves come and cover up the pathway, I'll be dropping pathway stones on top which will settle down into the fresh soil as the pathway continues to rot made much more moist by the addition of the leaves. 

It is also important to note that in my own rain garden, the rain gutter on the house empties into a concrete walkway which floods easily during a heavy rain. This impermeable pathway does make an excellent water highway to carry the rain water into the front yard where I have planted both, edible and ornamental plants, bamboo for growing bamboo timber, and a host of flowers.