apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

How did you create it? When we moved to this house three years ago there was already a well established garden, but it didn't quite suit our outdoor entertainment needs because the patio was too small. The previous owners had installed a really cool brick inlay that they had used as their patio. There was also an old cement foundation from a room that needed to be removed.

We decided to keep the circular brick inlay, but to expand the patio outward into a more modern square shape to fit more people. The patio is edged with steel and filled with pea gravel.

The walkway brings people into the space, doglegs around the garage and connects the house to the patio with the vegetable garden out back. It's made of local sawn limestone, and the pattern is based on Japanese path design. In Japanese garden design, I believe the style would be called "shin," which is highly controlled and clean. We were sure to design the limestone walk so as not to ever have four corners come together. A meeting of three is more aesthetically pleasing.

The low waddle fence surrounding the herb and perennial garden closest to the house (and kitchen) is made of local juniper branches (Texans call it cedar) that we harvested from a friend's country property. Largely, this is meant to be a sensory barrier for our blind dog. And, largely, it works, though sometimes she finds herself tromping through the middle of the garden anyway...

One of our neighbors made some great cement containers, and we are lucky enough to have scored a few. We used one of the round ones in combination with a rain chain. The other was turned into a fountain. There's a larger rectangular one that holds a few agaves.

By the walkway and underneath a growing desert willow is a bench that we made from wood picked up at Habitat Restore and from laying around the garage. It's beginning to warp and crack over time, which gives it a great organic, wabi-sabi feel. Like the waddle fence and naturalistic plantings, the bench seems like a nice counterpoint to the very linear limestone.

Pots surrounding the patio help to define the space as well. The two large ones are filled with a Mexican lime tree and a Meyer lemon tree.

And just on the other side of the patio is a directional sign that points to places and people that we love. On the same post grows a grape vine and hangs a native bee house, made from scraps of wood. Beyond all that is the veggie garden and the rest of the immense (and sometimes daunting) backyard.

Recommended store, site, product or resource? We hired a local firm called Dig It Gardens to pull out the cement foundation and install the steel edging and limestone pavers. Plants came from Barton Springs Nursery and the Natural Gardener. We found the fire pit at Breed & Co.