Talk to me about grass and patio stones.

[mm123]

We moved into our current house about 3 years ago, and still haven't done anything with our backyard (if you can call it that!). It's about the size of a postage stamp, and currently looks like a jungle. About half of it has bricks, but huge weeds grow up between them. The other half is a 'garden', but it's really just dirt with weeds growing in it, and it doesn't get much sun, because of a tree that's in the middle of it.

We'd really like to make it more usable. We were thinking of switching the brick to something a bit nicer for a stone patio of some sort, and then tearing out the 'garden' and putting in some grass.

We have NO experience with this stuff, so have a lot of questions.

Patio Stones: What types would you suggest? We want something low maintenance, not expensive, that'll keep the weeds underneath at bay.

Grass: Is it better to get sod, or start from seeds? Are there different types? Is any type lower maintenance? This may sound silly, but is there any type that doesn't really grow much (ie doesn't require a lot of mowing/weeding)?

We're obviously not 'do-it-yourself' type people, and will get someone else to do the work, but we'd love some ideas first.

Thanks for any suggestions/advice!!

[Nyfeara]

We've been looking to add a patio to our backyard too. After getting estimates on decking, pavers, and concrete - we wound up going with a stamped concrete patio. A large part of the decision was maintenance and cost.

The stamped concrete was the most affordable and we didn't have to worry about weeds in between the pavers. They're going to do a slate stamp pattern and it will be colored to look like stone. It worked out to be about $12/ sq ft in our area. We really wanted to do something nice but keep it closer to $5000 than the $10-$12k we were quoted for pavers/decking.

[hillview]

We got brick and it looks great -- into year 2 and no weeds
/hillary

[elbenn]

You could do a flagstone patio with the stones set apart a little so grass grows in- between. The grass between the flagstones should be a decorative grass, like mod grass. This is a beautiful look, and mod grass is low maintenance (no mowing needed).

[crl]

If you have a lot of shade, grass just isn't going to grow. In that case, I'd look at ground covers or a shade garden.

As far as weeds between stones, a lot of that is in the prep work, IMO. You need to prepare the ground beneath the patio. I think a few inches of sand is usually recommended. And if you do the work yourselves, a stone patio is relatively cheap. We did one with slate from home depot.

Catherine

[mackmama]

We're looking into this too. I think we're going to go with stamped concrete. The quote for pavers is very expensive. Our old house used to have pavers with moss/grass in between, and the maintenance was a pain.