you certainly have an enormous amount of potential here! this may not be in your budget, but when i look at this photo, i immediately hear PERGOLA shouting out to me. it would be perfect to have one hovering over your deck and providing you shade with some flowering vines growing on it. maybe something to keep on the back burner for down the road sometime:)

other than that, clusters of container arrangements strategically positioned would definitely liven things up. also, you could probably incorporate some sort of privacy screen by incorporating fabric onto your deck. i recommend you take a glance at the Better Homes & Gardens website. they have some great before and after photos of deck/patio 'makeovers' that i thing will really help you. wish you the best pal!

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.bhg.com/gardening/

The cheapest and most underrated landscape feature is trees. Looks like you've got space for one or two, far enough to not disturb your patio, and the whole scene could benefit from some greenery and life as the house is as stark as the patio - it all looks clean and neat and useful, but stark.

Small stones are generally a pain to maintain. So are containers, and they take up a lot of space. A simple pergola of some sort is not a bad idea.

KarinL

I wonder which way you want to face when sitting out on the deck? If you expect to face inward, toward the house, I'd construct permanent benches with backs in place of railings on the two outer sides of the deck -- could be centered on each side with breaks in the corners, or wrap that outer corner of the deck with an L-shaped bench, depending on how you prefer access to the grass. Put flip-top seats on the benches, use the bottom for storage, something like you see on the top deck of a ferry boat. Then as karinl suggested, a medium to large tree some distance off that corner so it doesn't crowd the deck, but would still provide partial shade. Other than that I'd keep it really simple. If you do use pots, get the largest you can find. Dinky pots are clutter and don't support life, big pots are a statement, and plants will actually gorw in them.

If you prefer to face outward from the house, get whatever table and chairs suit you for the patio, plus at least two loungers for the deck. If you can't do a partial pergola, two market umbrellas will do the trick. Then plant a vignette garden on the slope on the far side of the swale -- maybe a hummingbird or butterfly garden with a small ornamental tree behind it. In other words, create a view to look at from your deck and patio, the garden equivalent of the aquarium in the dentist's office. Use some plants that will give structure and endure year-round, then fill in with seasonals and annuals.

I'm with Karenl. You have a surface, now it is time to make a space for that surface to be "in".

Here is the after... I ended up just putting in new flowerbeds around the deck and new steps I built, then planted Liriope Muscari and Boxwoods, and hostas behind the patio. Got my furniture, but still don't have anything for the patio yet. I'm thinking a potted plant and bench/chair/glider of some kind.

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