arbor

Call it Ardeckbo. Hope you guys are going to plant a garden around it sometime. So far it and the pool look pretty exposed.

I might call it "inviting"...or maybe "comfortable"! Throw in the right accents and you can use the phrase "party tonight at the cabana!!"

- Brent

It's a pergola, silly!

Patty

Pergola. No doubt about it. I agree it looks very lonely and stark with nothing planted around it.

A pavillion. I agree with the suggestions to plant it.

I'd call it a pergola missing its climbers! Pretty, but it needs plants.

Thanks for the responses...seems there's still a little debate on what to call it but that's okay. Makes me feel better that my husband and I couldn't figure it out either. :)

Plantings...hmmm...I'm not the best gardener in the world and there are a host of perennials behind it but I've been stuck with what to do beyond that. Obviously we like a tidy, structured look but I do agree it currently needs to be warmed up. I have a hard time balancing warmth and variety with what (to my eye) can often look "messy" or like weeds gone wild.

I'm always open to suggestions!

My $0.02... I don't know what plants would be appropriate to grow in Texas, but I was thinking a climbing/vining "something" that blooms, and that would grow up and over the roof to soften the lines of the pergola just a bit. Nothing that would grow rampantly or swallow the structure, of course!

It is totally seperate from its surroundings but does it deserve a name that emphases that? A pergola is for walking under in the shade so it is not that. An arbour is a shady place to sit so it could be that. If I had to apply myself I would say 'sore thumb'.

Oh my goodness Ink, you're incorrigible. Of course, it's a pergola. But let's consult Dictionary.com on the subject:

pergola: An arbor or a passageway of columns supporting a roof of trelliswork on which climbing plants are trained to grow.

arbor: shady resting place in a garden or park, often made of rustic work or latticework on which plants, such as climbing shrubs or vines, are grown.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Okay, I guess it's a naked pergola, to be exact. "Pavilion" works too, a small pavilion.

Patty

I would call it a cabana and I would grow lonicera sempervirens - coral honeysuckle as a climber if it were in Florida.

Here is a link that might be useful: plants for Texas

Someone showed on their blog site, a little structure not quite so fancy that they're planting and calling a 'vine house.' I thought that was a romantic notion.

Nell

Besides the lack of vines, that name won't work because Romance is not tidy or structured - it's messy.

I thought a vine house was an alternative destination to a beer garten.

The things I learn at Gardenweb....

A cabana without sexay cabana boyz? What fun is that? (florah)

Romance is untidy and messy. (annieinaustin)

My vote goes with bboy. It's a beer garten. Is it too early in the morning to do the polka?

Thanks for the morning laugh, everyone. :o)

Isn't there a new fad structure similar to this look called a "tea house"?

Pergarbor. (Because it's neither one nor the other.)

melanie