A Resurfaced Patio

Landscape Smart traveled to the San Francisco home of Anna Haake, who wanted to resurface her drab, rectangular concrete patio and perk up the area with colorful flowers. Landscape architect Louise Leff advises against getting rid of an old patio when it's so cost-effective to resurface it with flagstone or other materials. Her design for Haake's yard calls for reshaping and resurfacing the concrete patio with a peach-colored flagstone, creating a couple of casual flagstone pathways, planting a colorful woodland garden with wind-tolerant plants, and adding a small fountain for charm.

Leff estimates that a professional would charge $3,200 to resurface the patio, but do-it-yourselfers can purchase the flagstone for about $1,500 (plants and fountain would be extra) and complete the project in two weekends. She rates this project a 3 on a scale of 1 (easy) to 5 (difficult). She adds that for lifting the heavier pieces of flagstone, you'll need the help of a friend.

Step One: Preparing the Site

The existing patio should be level and without many cracks. The crew started by marking out a curved area on the existing rectangular concrete patio, broke up the corners with a jackhammer, and removed the debris to give the area a softer, more natural look. Leff reduced the size of the patio so that it would be more to scale with the small backyard.

After reshaping or resizing, if needed, thoroughly wash off the patio so that mortar will stick to the clean surface.

Step Two: Placing the Flagstone

Leff chose peach-colored flagstones, which cost about $240 per ton for select grade. Other options for resurfacing a patio include slate and half bricks.

Sort the flagstones according to size. Hammer in some stakes and run a string line along the border of the patio to keep the stones lined up along the edge of the concrete.

Step Three: Mortaring the Stones

Landscape Contractor Macario Bedoy uses a mortar compound composed of Portland cement mixed with sand and water. He wets down the flagstones before placement to prevent them from absorbing moisture from the mortar.

Apply the mortar to the concrete surface, and spread it out to about 2 to 3 inches thick. Then set the flagstone into the bed of mortar and gently tap it into place with a hammer. Continue mortaring the flagstones one at a time in small segments, cleaning up any excess mortar between them as you go. Check that each stone is level .

For making larger cuts, use a heavy-duty saw fitted with a diamond blade that you can use wet or dry to score the stone. Then, knock off the excess pieces with a hammer and set the stone into place.

Step Four: Completing the Patio

Now that the patio is complete, it's time to plant a colorful, wind-tolerant garden to accentuate the patio area.

Planting a Breezy Backyard

Leff created a woodland garden with a variety of colors, textures, and sizes. Because of the windy weather in San Francisco, she included some wind-tolerant plants, such as grasses that sway in the wind, shrubs with branches spaced apart to allow wind flow and prevent breakage, and low plants that wind can blow over. Some of the plants she chose were:

• Fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum), Zones 9-10
• Eulalia grass (Miscanthus sinensis) Zones 4-9
• Huechera 'Plum Pudding', Zones 4-8
• Rhododendron (various types and zones)