Part of gardening is actually finding ways to enjoy all your hard work. Here, building yourself a seating area.
For this project, I wanted a place to sit that wasn’t on the back porch. A place I could have my coffee, but away from the house enough to not hear the tv or whatever noise was happening inside.
We went to a landscape business that carried different flagstones and blocks, not just pots and gravel. We found these landscape blocks that we liked. Bonus, they were marked down to clear them out. (Hint: look for markdowns or clearance blocks if you don’t have your heart set on a specific style.)
Since we went into this with a vague idea of what we wanted, our options were totally open. We liked the shape and the price, so purchased about 55 of these blocks. They were about 8″ wide by 12″ long. This whole area ended up being about 7′ at its widest and maybe 12′ long.
First step is to mark your spot and clear out the grass. Fill in with sand and pack it down as level as you can. You’re going for a base that will let your blocks be about grass height. Makes it way easier for mowing or trimming around the area.
Next, start laying out the blocks in the design you want. You may change this as you start working and see that a different direction may fit better. That’s all part of it and it’s okay to pivot. We only had to cut a couple of blocks to fit in because we left room to shift them around.
After the blocks were in place, we added a little more sand to hold them in their spots. To finish the look, we added pea gravel to fill the space we’d left in between. Then bark mulch to finish the planting side of the seating area.
Planted a few irises and a young tree. A couple large stones and a bird bath to finish. The table and chairs were from Fred Meyer. It turned out to be an awesome small seating area to view the yard and enjoy the peace and quiet.
If you have a small area you’d like to have a seating area, don’t be afraid to start.
Hand in Hand 