Hi, If you check Craigslist and other classifieds, and tell everyone you know that you're looking for bricks (or anything else) they may start showing up on your porch. I put out the word that I need bricks and in one month, there are over 1500 of them in my yard, all for my favorite price, FREE!! A friend of mine says that there are a few bricks everywhere. It appears to be true. If you get bricks from lots of sources and mix them up, they just all go together. Sand is cheap to lay them on. If you dig down in the soil to make the bricks level with it, you won't need rebarb around the edge to hold them in place. Some people on the Garden Junk and Trash to Treasure forums have made paved areas out of wood and other materials. You may want to post this question on those forums. There's a lot of wood being thrown away everywhere in the form of pallets and old redwood or cedar fence boards. You can build a frame from 2x4's or pallet 'stringers' and nail the fence boards on top of them to make a wood floor. If the termites move in, just throw it away and make a new one. (Treated 2x4's are inexpensive and shouldn't be attacked by termites.) Total cost-the price of nails or screws. If splinters are an issue, the boards can be sanded and finished with any exterior stain, sealer or paint. Anyone with 7th grade carpenter skills could help build this thing. You may be able to find a sale on new fence boards and be within your landlord's budget. The wood is far less work than bricks and will possibly be cooler to walk on. This answer has nothing to do with landscape design, just a few ideas about getting a cheap patio. Hope that helps, Linda

For the most part it seems that you have a blank slate to work with. The new trees were installed in locations prior to the development of a comprehensive plan which means that they could by happenstance be in the right place. Or, they might end up being more useful if they were relocated. One would not know what is best to do with them UNTIL an overall plan is created. So far, the goals (shade for dog and space for camellias) seem vague. Are there other goals such as to screen neighboring properties? How many Camellias will be grown and in what form? ... tree or shrub? It's time to start tightening up goals and to start working things out on paper. Even though you say you're "not good at designing," you'll be able to do some basic organizing with help from the forum. It would be time to create a base plan of the back yard on some graph paper. I recommend printing some from here: virtual graph paper you can print. Use the lightest line weight and 10 lines to the inch as a place to start. In the drawing, show the house, fence, gates and where the existing trees are located. (And any other important feature that we can't see.) Show the patio paving and any walks, but for now, not the patio roof. Once this is done, you'll be faced with answering the questions that have been posed and considering how large to make the lawn vs. how much space to devote to planting bed(s) ... and where they will be. Maybe you could take a crack at this much and post the results...? And have no fear of failure as it won't do you any good.

If you scroll further down in that linked thread, the details are there including pictures from the outside. . I am pasting the text from that thread , below, for a quick read. My box bay was built under a second floor overhang so no roof needed but a small roof would probably not add that much to the total cost. Another bonus of the box bay is that with the half screens, we can remove the banquette pillow and use the window seat for a staging area for food to be passed to the deck from the kitchen when we have a garden party. The half screens move up and allow access to the plates/trays, and then move down to protect the food and house from flies. It beats trying to walk out a closed patio door with both hands carrying a heavy tray. We also have used the box bay to temporarily stage the music speakers for parties. Of course nowadays that is moot due to bluetooth everywhere. I think you have lots of room to get by it on the exterior. You can put a bench of similar depth and width in that area on the outside of the house to gauge how it might affect your walkway. HTH ___________________________________________ form the original thread... It cost slightly less than $5000 all told (including moving electrical and adding foam insulation under the exterior Azek cladding, tempered windows since I have all boys :) ), measures 78 inches wide internally by 18 inches deep. Much cheaper than adding a 40k breakfast room or an 80k large kitchen expansion as I first planned. I have a custom cushion for it now and my teen boys enjoy lounging and napping there. The key is to seat it low enough to the ground to make it comfortable for sitting (16" height). I also specified the weight that it had to be able to carry (600 lb). The style is known as a "box bay" and the brand is Sunrise windows. I purchased their premade "projected frame" window through their authorized contractor and he worked with me on the other details. My good friend and former nanny came by to visit the other day and barely noticed the kitchen renovation, she was so taken with the sitting bay. Exterior of original windows New box bay replacing old windows. Somehow those bay walls bring in a lot more light into the space. We also really like watching all the small wildlife outside that we could not reall see before. In terms of the layout, it gave us enough "breathing space" and sitting area... The light, animal/ibird watching, and perceived airiness is a huge bonus.

My landscaping experience is DIYing/low budget in the Midatlantic on a bare suburban lot. Different climate but I relate to how overwhelming the blank slate is! If I were you I'd start small, focus on the landscaping around the house, and then work my way out. Mulching is easy and cheap, so getting some foundation beds established around the house would be my first goal. (Not sure if there are different considerations for mulch & foundation planting in Fla?) I'd also find a way to clean up the paths between the raised beds so I wouldn't have to worry about grass and weeds (gravel, pavers), and create some sort of border (shrubs, fence, herb & perennial garden) around the veg beds to visually establish the first outside "room," since that space is further along than any of your other planned spaces. Having one space defined will probably help you sort out what you want to do with the rest of it. Those two jobs alone would be plenty of work for this year. Later, as soon as I had the cash, I'd hire a pro to expand the porch/patio area off the house (you mentioned entertaining; that space looks cramped now, especially in relation to the size of the planned gazebo) and install a nice curving path to the gazebo pad. I'd make it my long-term goal to have garden beds along the entire fence perimeter because string trimming that much grass is a PITA! I'd also learn all I could about native plants for the area and climate-smart landscaping. No point in planting things that will be a burden. :)