sandstone patio – Peter Donegan Garden Design & Landscaping

There are only two things that matter when making any great garden – What the client [I hate that word…] wants and equally as important the end result. In short, whilst I would love, that every garden is a Peter Donegan memorial, the reality of how happier I have made someone because of their new space outside kicks in in two parts: the minute I finish and handover the picture perfect postcard garden. And secondly in the months and years after I am gone.

In the non-cheesiest way of saying, it is a real honour to get to make people smile because of what I do, but that latter happiness factor requires much smart thinking and it is only then that you really notice, horticulturally what you have [I guess] paid for.

That aside, I could not have wished for nicer people to create this garden for and that very simply makes my work and this northside Dublin garden just that extra little bit sweeter.

Wanna see what it looked like before hand ?

Patio Choices: Sandstone Paving

Laid well and chosen correctly sandstone can make one of the nicest outdoor spaces you’ve ever seen. There are however a few things that I chose to do on this project to make the finished garden look and the creating of just that little bit smarter.

Of note, you will find in sandstone that there are ruffles in its surface which do add character to its finish. Also you will find no matter which way you lay them, you will get some puddling of water within the slabs because of that; note again: no matter which way you lay them it will retain some water. That said it should also freely drain by the levels you set.

Aco Drain Channels – In reality I’d rather not have any drains but entirely necessary in this case I chose not to use the silver steel version but instead the matt black plastic just to fade it, as versus highlight. That said it does look quite smart.

The Sandstone Circle – was going to be 3 metre in diameter. A really smart call was made on this part way through to change to the 2 metre diameter. It comes as a set, so the only thing I really had to do was remove the outer third tier of the circle. We also made a smarter call to put it off centre ~ when it’s not a ye olde type formal garden, central rarely works out. Gardens for the long-term, good calls are very necessary. Great clients [I’d have preferred a friendlier word] really do help when it comes to things like this.

Fuge – was also used in between the joints of the paving. In the context of time cost/ man hour units versus a more expensive product [?] it was for more reasons a far better choice than the old days of filling mortar into the joints by hand. The video explains that a little bit more.

The mix of slab colour was also a good choice as versus going with the one colour theme and I personally find it almost changes colour as the light descends upon it. I also used an old timber edge as the surround. From a logic perspective, this will allow the pebble to be retained on the peripheral beds and from a design point of view the colours tie in quite well with the stone colours.

note: the garden was created 2nd week in April and in the paving images, the sand/ grit had literally just been brushed in.

* all pics courtesy Donegan Landscaping