From Cramped Patio to Spacious Outdoor Living (West Chester)
AFTER: A spacious patio creates room to mingle. Native plants flank the sidewalk, attracting pollinators to new vegetable beds that offer fresh food steps away from the home’s back door.
The Challenge
When the homeowners reached out, their small concrete patio was creating a claustrophobic feeling in a yard that actually had a lot of space. And the fading crabapple tree wasn’t adding to the yard’s appeal.
BEFORE: A cramped concrete patio and ailing crabapple tree proved uninviting, and the family wasn’t really using their outdoor space.
The clients wanted to completely reimagine their outdoor living experience.
Goals included expanding their patio space, creating a firepit area, developing a raised bed vegetable garden area, and improving their privacy from the street. Ease of access and visibility from the kitchen were a must as well!
The Transformation
We started by removing the crabapple tree and the concrete patio, which revealed a large blank slate from which to start fresh.
AFTER: In their second season, native plants are increasingly established.
The new, spacious patio invites the family outdoors and provides ample room to mingle. We created periphery beds to flank the patio and sidewalk and filled them with native plants to provide pops of color and attract pollinators.
We also built several raised beds so the family could grow their own vegetables and easily access them from the back door.
AFTER: Colorful periphery beds attract pollinators.