Happy Fall, folks! When the weather finally warmed up this year, I used it as an opportunity to make our back patio a more comfortable place to lounge, particularly since we are pretty much home all the time. I also wanted to incorporate more plants since the brick and concrete make it feel a bit institutional. I didn’t take a before picture but this pic from 2018 is roughly close to what it used to look like. Look how small Thambi looks!
Lounge area
First we needed to create a space for lounging. We moved the grill into the walkway from the house and put down another outdoor rug (from Overstock.com). I bought the chairs a bit late in the season and most stores were out of stock, but after much searching, I snagged these reasonably priced chairs from Wayfair. The patio already feels more welcoming with less concrete exposed!
You can also see a couple extra plants. These Mexican Petunias are lovely - these thrive in full sun and they bloomed every morning with lots of purple flowers:
We also discovered this amazing garden center out in Gainesville, VA on our way back from a winery this summer: Merrifield Garden Center. I wanted some large planters that were made of fiberglass so that they weren’t too heavy. Well, this place had a LARGE selection:
Here’s a pic of Mike and Thambi enjoying the lounge area shortly after we set it up (but before we got the plants):
The rest of the shipments took some time to arrive, but after a few weeks, the outdoor pouf ottoman and side table from Wayfair and a cantilever umbrella from Home Depot showed up!
All. the. plants!
Next, it was time to add some more plants. First, I purchased some more herbs from our local Farmer’s Market for our little herb corner. Can never have too much basil!
We then put this low horizontal planter by the stairs to the basement (which also helps us block small children from falling down into the stairwell). This cedar planter also came from Wayfair (boy, I spent some $$$ there this summer!):
I do like the jungle-y look of this planter with some echinacea, salvia, and some ground cover. In the pot on the right, we have vincas which are ridiculously easy to maintain. Unfortunately I put too many plants into the cedar planter and they aren’t quite as healthy now as they look in this picture.
Finally, in the little dirt that is by the brick wall, we planted some marigolds and put up a birdhouse with succulents. At one point this summer, that bird house turned into a wasp nest! Mike sprayed them because it wasn’t quite so enjoyable hanging out on the patio with wasps swarming around.
Overall, I think we successfully created a little green, urban oasis and we got a ton of use out of it this summer. We’re toying with some ideas to keep it usable through the Fall as well. We’ll see if any of those pan out.
And now…a puppy picture.
A couple of weeks ago, we enjoyed the early Fall weather. We’re lucky that this patio is on the South side of the house so it stays pretty warm, even if there is a little bit of a chill in the air. Here’s Thambi comfortably enjoying the weather in one of the lounge chairs while I enjoy a pumpkin beer. Cheers!
