On a very exciting note, we have invited a landscape architect friend of mine (we went to college together) to come over and redesign our back patio and gardens. If all goes well and our budget allows, we’ll be getting a new backyard sometime next year.
The idea is to create a sort of courtyard feel right around the backdoor. Right now, the patio is almost too big and is just an uninteresting rectangle with grass growing right up to it. There’s no buffer between our lawn and the brick patio. We spend a lot of time out there and hope to create a much more intimate space. My friend will probably laugh at us as we describe our vision: a new patio, retaining walls that have built in benches, a raised perennial border, a fire pit, some new trees and shrubs to “close in” the space, a low fence (hopefully) to keep the chickens and dogs out of the new beds, and, maybe, a redo of our pond.
The possibility of all this is so exciting. It will be so interesting to see it all on paper and find out if she thinks our vision is possible.
I hope she doesn’t try to talk us into using those “stone” patio pavers that are all the rage right now. I can’t stand the brick pavers we have now. They just get covered in moss, weeds come up in the cracks and, though I’m sure it was level when it as installed, it isn’t now. The dips and valleys hold water and mud and make it too easy to trip. I have a sneaking suspicion that those new pavers would do the same 10 years down the road.
I think we want to do patterned concrete. My aunt and uncle have a patio like this. There are seams to allow for expansion and contraction, but there are no little groves for weeds to take hold. If anyone out there has experience with this or has on opinion on what we should or shouldn’t do, I’d love to hear it. Advice, please?
