What to do with this patio area

View attachment 65290 I've just finished some major renovation work to my home with the result that I've ended up with a patio about 50 sq meters, basically square but now I'm wondering what to do with the patio. There seems to be a lot of work ahead

I've never really planed out my outside space before it all seemed quite natural but I am going to have to plan this area as it is important to get it right

When I look at the space 50 square meters does seem a lot but it is in keeping with the size of my other outside area

I've taken the liberty of attaching two photographs, taken from my kitchen/living area large sliding door, you will see an old Windmill stump in the background and to the left of it there is a shaded tree area. That's my back street

That's my problem,I have to be sympathetic to both the tree area and the Windmill, which is of course a major feature, and to my 60's red brick house. At present I'm looking in gardening books, magazines, and the Internet for some spark of an idea. Needless to say I'd be more than happy to hear your views and if you could point me in the directions of some actual designs that would be great.

Is 50 square meters a big patio area or am I just thinking it is

Love to hear from you

Kevin

 

I'm getting to the stage that heavy gardening is, shall we say, not as attractive as it use to be. So I will be thinking containers, raised beds.

I also should say that I have a two largish side gardens where I have shrubs and flowers, roses, and also a large expanse of lawn. So really I'm going for as much maintain economic free as possible.

 

what a nice corner you have there

 

Perfect place for some large planters which you can grow basically anything in. I'm a big fan of container gardening and have allsorts in them, including Rhododendrons, Cherry and Crab Apple trees, Lilacs, Camellias, Roses, Japanese Maples, Hydrangeas and other shrubs, etc. You could go a bit crazy with that much space and create a nice private area.

You do need to bear in mind though that anything in a pot needs more tlc and more regular watering/feeding. Additionally, every 2-3 years you'll need to take the plants out and root prune them, then re-pot them back into their container. And the root balls can get very heavy.

I had a new patio done a year ago and started off with some of my Rhodo collection, but it's got lots of other stuff on there now which I'm still deciding what to put where.

 

Like others have said, I'd go for groups of containers.

I don't know if they are available in the UK, but here we do get some lovely large half-barrels, that are used to mature young red wine in (can only be used once, and then disposed of, so relatively cheap for their size). The advantage of such a big container is that the normal "container growing stress" is minimised. The barrels are also potential wine- and water-tight, so make a great water feature...
OK, so technically this first barrel is a whisky barrel....



To give you an idea of size, the handled barrel is about 1 metre across...