At Home & In the Garden with Two Blonds & Co.: Great backyard project: Instant garden retreat

Don't know about you, but I'm always looking for creative inexpensive ideas for landscaping. Here are a few of my favorties from the folks at Sunset.

Have a good one...be careful in this heat!

Have a small patch of grass? This patio measures just 7 feet across. You can build it in a weekend for less than $200.

By Kathleen N. Brenzel, Sunset

Most patios take time — and days of effort — to build. But a small, detached patio like the one pictured here comes together quickly with minimal effort.

Think of the possible uses for this circle of bricks (see three ideas in this slide show). You can tuck it into a perennial border. Or place it in a remote corner of your garden, where you can linger at day's end over a glass of wine or on Sunday morning with a latte while perusing the papers.

Such flexibility was our goal when Sunset's Bud Stuckey installed this patio near the end of a wide flower border in our editorial test garden in Menlo Park, Calif., last summer. But we also wanted our tiny tuck-in to be relatively inexpensive to build, easy to install in a day or a weekend and moveable. (Since heavy foot traffic wouldn't be an issue, we set the bricks in sand.)

You wouldn't want to walk on this patio wearing spike heels. But if throwing fancy-dress garden parties is your style, set the bricks in mortar on a concrete base, or arrange them on packed soil so you can grow plants such as creeping thyme in wider spaces between them. (You can edge the patio with bricks set on end in a trench around the outside, soil packed firmly against them.)

If bricks don't match the other pavers in your yard, you can adapt the idea, substituting flagstone, slate, cobblestone or colored concrete pavers. In place of a round slate paver in the center, you can use a concrete paver embellished with broken glazed tiles in pretty colors.
Locate your patio on level ground, out of wind and hot sun. Position it to take advantage of any grand views and create access to it with steppingstones. Then comes the fun part: styling your patio. Oh, and settling in with a tall glass of something cool to celebrate its completion.

Build it yourself: Installing the instant patio

Time: 1 day (plus a day for planting)

Cost: About $190

Materials: Two 7-foot-long two-by-fours, two 1-foot-long stakes with pointed tips, string, gypsum, 12 1-cubic-foot bags (about a half-yard) of clean sand, one round slate or flagstone paver (about 17 inches in diameter; add two or more for steppingstones — optional), and 150 used bricks (includes a few extras for color matching). Optional: One 80-pound bag Quikcrete mortar mix, one quart mortar color

Tools: Rotary tiller or spade, rake, carpenter's level, tamper, hose, rubber mallet, bench broom. Optional: Bucket for mixing mortar, grout bag, trowel, rag, burlap

Begin: 8 a.m.

1. Rototill or dig the soil; rake it smooth. Lay the two-by-fours about seven feet apart to serve as temporary guides. Place a stake in the soil to mark the patio's center; tie a 3 1/2-foot-long piece of string to it, then tie the string's free end to the second stake. With the free stake, trace the patio's outline in the soil, pulling the string taut as you walk in a wide circle around the center stake. Remove the stakes and mark the circle with gypsum. Remove the two-by-fours from the sides; then place the carpenter's level on one of them to make sure soil is level. (Recheck level at every stage.)

2. Pour six bags of sand evenly over the soil to about five inches beyond the gypsum mark. Smooth it with the edge of one of the two-by-fours, then tamp it evenly to firm. Spray with a fine mist from the hose, then tamp it again into a layer about two inches thick.

3. Place the center paver on the sand base. Working from the center outward, set down the bricks (use the pattern on your left), tapping them into place with the mallet and butting them together as tightly as possible. Spread three bags of sand evenly over the surface of the finished paving, let it dry if wet, then sweep the sand into the joints between bricks. Mist lightly with the hose. Add sand until joints are full.

4. To mortar the center paver in place (optional, but recommended), mix the mortar and add color, if desired, according to package directions. Using a grout bag, apply the mixture between the bricks immediately surrounding the center paver (use a trowel tip to smooth it if necessary). Allow it to dry; wipe away excess with a clean, soft rag. For extra firming (also optional), mix one part mortar with one part sand, then brush the mixture into joints between the outer bricks. Carefully sweep excess mortar off the bricks. Mist periodically over the next two hours. Scrub bricks with burlap to eliminate any mortar stains.

5. Pour the remaining sand around the patio's perimeter; mist it with the hose and pack it firmly with your hands or the back of the trowel.