A New Patio

Well here it is, the big project reveal.  We've had a new patio constructed in the backyard, a playground for me.  This is my holiday up in the north woods, my cottage, my mid-life crisis sports-car, or whatever you'd like to think.  Mrs. F.G. thought I needed to be off the deck and sit in the shade of the trees.  Her idea, and this is the result.

As I'm sure many of you guessed, this is our big project, the first completed view out the window.  We had it poured of concrete rather than stone or inter-locking brick so it would stand up to the weight of a 500 lb. wheelchair and passenger.

I headed down off the deck, turned the corner and this was the view, the long curving path to get to the patio.  It seems enormous compared to the sketch on paper that we started out with, but they did a good job.

The patio itself is a good size rectangle, but when it gets loaded with plants in pots and chairs, it will still only leave comfortable room for me to turn around in the middle.  We have two big colourful Muskoka chairs that will end up down here (like Adirondack chairs for some of you).

Mrs.F.G. says the patio is for me, but it also opens up the gardening possibilities for her.  This long narrow strip in front of the deck will become a  'scree' garden, an area designed for small alpine plants with fine pea gravel on the surface for mulch.

And looking to the left the area between the patio and the trees will become a 'naturalized', partly shaded garden.  The nice green leaves are our Magnolia, the wheelbarrow is our neighbours.

Looking at the same area from the opposite direction, on the patio.  Her aim is to have 90% of the grass in the backyard gone in a few years.  We've hired a team of young guys to start the work next week.  We went to look at types of mulch and stone today so we're ready.

These gaps where there is still grass will all get filled in.  As you can see our existing garden here is very full, so we can do much of this by moving plants that need more space out from the existing small crowded patches.

Looking out the window, the first few plants have been put in place, though I'm sure these will evolve and be moved for a long time yet.  One of the favourite tasks of the gardener - dreaming and scheming about which plants will go where and what new plants need to be acquired.