I'm having my patio and driveway stained

Saved this one for St. Patty's day...

What is green, has many legs and sits out in your backyard near your BBQ?










Do you give up?













Paddy O'Furniture!

If you'd like it a pretty yellowish brown color, we have two little doggies that will do it for free for you.

All they require are lots of biscuits, a chance to go pee on George Bush now and then, and 24/7 affection and attention.

Of course, you'd have to return them when the job is done, and that would be the most difficult part.

The driveway, walkway and patio will be in the vintage umber. On the patio they etched a compass, and it will be the umber color in the middle, with contracts of the english red and black.

They've been cleaning and taking up paint for the last 2 days, tomorrow they start staining.

I'm interested not just for you two, which I am, but to learn more re my last experiences. I've specified a lot of colored concrete, integral or dust on, but not stained. Those were successful, not that I can attribute that to me, but my boss/mentor who was impeccable re choices, etc. Staining was phasing in as I was phasing out. I spent a lot of time reading articles re people first playing with staining.

I've also a purist side, my own choice now, re treating concrete like concrete, let it weather, but I won't belabor that since you have made your choice and I like, now after all that, some colored concrete.

I might have suggested color in the first place, when we first talked re your property. Just be sure you want it.

Groaaan

I'm thinking the color is going to end up looking something like this.

It's an interesting story how we came to pick this particular person, but I'm not in the mood to tell in right now. (Ragman's joke just fatigued me)

It might turn out stark when you first see it. That photo has been wetted..


When it works well, the driveway, et al, doesn't take precedence over the landscape.

We had a toughie with a very old house and property, and pouring normal born white concrete was noxious so we got the mix to meet equal aggregate, and so on. It still came out whitish. But concrete does accrete patina. I happen to like patina, and that did well in that city.
That will be a decision for you as you may disagree.

At this point (and I never would have said this in practice), I think a glass of red wine on a fairly fresh pour is a nice baptism. Or grape ade.

It won't be stark, the last step is 3 coats of glossy top coat.
The photo isn't wetted, it's got a glossy top coat on it.

Then, I reapply top coat as needed, maybe once a year or so.
That's easy, it just rolls on.

The 2 garden areas and the driveway, walkway and patio are all "intertwined" with each other. Plain concrete drags the attractiveness of the garden areas down. The effect of the stain will be that there is ground around the areas.

Really osso, it's going to be great.

I researched this a lot, and I'm actually doing now what I should have done maybe 4 years ago. The reason it took them 2 days prep work is that a lot of it was getting up various painting projects I'd done, which made the entire front of the house and garden look great, but unfortunately, only temporarily.
The paint would eventually start coming up, even though I'd use garage floor paint. I finally admitted I'm not a professional, and to leave it to them.

I'd get a lot of compliments from casual passerby's on the paint, so I'd think it'd be even more so with the stain.

In any event, todays the day!

Well la-ti-da...

I'm having my teeth stained - right now - I'm drinking coffee.

Wow wee!

Looking good already.

When I got home, they had already gone, and the first application was setting. They are coming back at 7pm (in about an hour) to put the 2nd stain coating on.
Then tomorrow, they'll start the top coats.

We can walk on it right away, but can't drive a car on it until Thursday (heat from the tires)

Have to be careful not to get any water on it for at least 12 hours after the stain is applied, since that will cause it to mess up.

I'll take pictures after it's all done.

Have fun, and a good pour, ah, staining...

I see I'm late. Glad it's going well..

I'm looking forward to seeing pictures tomorrow!

Ta Da!

This is acid stain, so it goes down over about a 1/2 inch into the cement, so no chipping.

Even with the cars on the driveway, I should only have to reapply the top coat every couple of years, not every 6 months.

The first pic is darker than the others, because of a cloud overhead.

The white trellis will soon have coral honeysuckle growing up it. I also just planted boxwood in front of the house

It looks really good! Wow, you've put a lot of work into the front yard. I bet your neighbors love you!

I like that little curving pathway in the garden area. Did you do all the brick border work in the yard yourself?

Do you folks have a problem with people "removing" stuff when it is left out in the yard or on your porch?

BBB has had solar lights, a wrought iron bench and some large flower urns taken from her front yard over the years she's been here.

I'd love to put a solar water fountain and bird bath in the front yard, kind of like what you have, but am afraid it too would develop feet and walk away.

Actually, they'll love we are finally fixing it up!
In past years, I've tried to plant different things in that raised planter in the middle, the one that angles upwards.
But it gets sun ALL day (you know what that means in Central Tx in August) and it would just die between the regular heat, and the stone heating up.

I am very optimistic the trellis will provide afternoon shade for both the planter, and some for the rest of the garden. Meaning late in the day, where the bird bath is.
I just planted a lot of drought/heat tolerant plants around that tree, they are still small....lantana, sedum.

In that one shot looking at the bird bath? That's a chrysanthemum (sp?) that has been there 4 or more years. I cut it down to within a few inches to the ground at the tail end of the cooler weather, maybe 5 weeks ago, and you can see it's already making quite a comeback. It'll easily get about a foot and a half tall soon.
I also cut down to the ground a wormwood, which was getting raggedy. It's coming back real nice. I moved the birdbath from a corner of the garden, and just put in an oleander there a couple of weeks ago. In the actual planter I've put in bush tomatoes and cucumber. We'll see how that goes.

Buttrfly - no, things don't disappear.
I don't think you can see it in any of the pictures, but in front of the garden area that has a path, there's a small wrought iron fence that we got from Lowe's a few years ago, and put up ourselves.
It doesn't keep people out, but it does keep people from letting their dogs **** all over.
Austin has strong lease laws, and strong "pick up after your dog" laws, but there's always some pig that doesn't care.
I would get so angry going out there and seeing some lazy ass let their dog take a **** right in the middle of a buch of flowers, like that was totally all right. The little fence gets the message across, and also creates a nice separation from the walking traffic.

Anyway, back to things disappearing. No problem with that. My neighbors leave their kids trolly car thing right out front, people have their chairs, statuary, stuff hanging from trees, no problem. I am truly fortunate living in my neighborhood.

That little gravel path? Until recently, my neighbors toddler was totally in love with it. Every day when going for a walk with his mom, he would come in, stand at the foot of the path and survey it, then would do his special "walking down the path walk" Tinier steps then he would usually take, looking left to right, like he was in his private little forest. Then he'd come back out, take a rock from a pile of medium size round stones I have, and put it in a special place on the planter.

Sigh, they do grow fast though, I think he's moved on.

By next Spring, I hope everything will look more established. Gardening is a work in progress. It's always something.
I had never gardened before a few years ago, so it's been learning as I go along.
I love it.

You should take a look at this site and also get their catalog. I've been learning a lot about natives and drought/heat tolerant plants for our arid/hot - arid/cold climate from them.

Farmerman used to do his buying from them too when he lived in NM.

http://www.highcountrygardens.com/

I purchased some butterfly bushes from their catalog last year and they are starting to pop back up for the Spring. This year I purchased but haven't had delivered yet some blanket flowers and some lavenders. Last year I also got tomatoes and peppers from them that thrived here.

I'm pretty sure that nandina would do well in your area. We've got 5 of them all along the front windows of the house and another 4 of them in the backyard that help shade the living room windows. They seem to take almost anything that gets thrown at them -- sandy soil, snow, freezing temps, hot temps, over-watering, and under-watering.

They look a lot like ornamental bamboo and produce tiny red berries in the winter after having bloomed fragrant white blossoms in the spring. In the Fall, their leaves turn a bright red.





My dad also had some of these at his house in Arlington during the time he forgot he was a Yankee and married a southern belle.

oh, we've got nandina all over the neighborhood.

I have lavendar, and just planted 3 more dwarf varieties.

I also have indian blanket, it's somewhere in the picture.

There's so many things I just planted, but they are just starting to grow.

I had a nandina hedge in Venice. I'm fond of it.

Butterfly bushes - ah, Buddleias - have been implicated re invasiveness. Sorry, no links, but that gave me qualms re my particular geography. Something about birds taking berries elsewhere. (I'm right next to the petroglyphs). I've long liked various buddleias.
ok, one link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddleja_davidii