How big should a patio be?
Design a patio sensitive to wildlife while minimising size and its carbon footprint as much as possible
Are you thinking of making a new patio in your garden? Perhaps you have a patio and are thinking of updating it. Or you may have an existing patio and are thinking of reducing it for more plants. Whichever angle you come from, the big question is what exactly is the best size of patio? How do you work it out? And can patios coexist with a wildlife supporting garden?
In my design practice over the last five years I’ve been lucky to remove more patio than I’ve designed and installed. It’s true that we need to significantly reduce the amount of paved areas in gardens but the patio is still a valid and important feature when done right.
This is the first in a series I’m planning on sustainable patios and paving. In this article I’m going to explore size of patio, revealing how I calculate the smallest patio size possible without compromising. I have a number of rules for achieving a reasonable balance and here I will explain my top patio size secrets.
Can we have our patio and eat on it?
Last week the RHS released their first State of Gardening Report which is an important new step for gardening. To improve the world of gardening for wildlife and us, first we have to understand exactly what is going on. I’m particularly delighted to see the maps of the UK showing the country’s current state of play with gardens. Now we know that there is:
20.6 million home gardens (25.8 million gardens in total, including parks, allotments etc)
502,857 hectares in home gardens including front and back gardens (959,800 hectares total)
212,000 hectares of home gardens are paved
A fantastic opportunity for wildlife, except 42% of UK home garden land area is paved. Eek. Clearly the UK’s home owners have got it very wrong with the balance of paving to plants. That is a lot of land that could be supporting wildlife, not to mention full of flowers for us.
Clearly the UK is paving too much land in gardens but is there any amount of paving that is acceptable? I believe there is, it feels wrong to not have any patio, I think of it as another room in the house without walls. A nice area to sit, to work or eat, it gets us outside, connecting us with nature in the most personal way. That is important. A solid place to sit encourages us to care about nature more. However, we have to get better at minimising their size.
My essential rules for calculating the right size of patio
This will make sure you think of everything to minimise the size of patio and amount of paving for plants and wildlife without making a mistake when it comes to you using it.