He Pulled Up the Paved Patio and Completely Rebuilt His Small Courtyard
Concrete paving covered almost every part of this 4-by-4-meter courtyard in Utrecht, Netherlands. Apart from narrow timber sections beside the house and greenery along the fence, the compact space offered almost no ground for a garden.
Reddit user u/carlosadmoura had promised his girlfriend a garden in what he called her “dead patio,” so the existing paving came up. The project kept the courtyard footprint but changed how almost every part of it was used, replacing rows of square slabs with planting beds, a gravel path, stepping stones, and a dark fence backdrop. His girlfriend helped make design choices, including the color combination.
Concrete Pavers Covered Most of the Courtyard
Square concrete slabs ran from the timber edge near the house to the rear fence, leaving little exposed soil. Moss between the joints and growth around the perimeter marked the few breaks in the paved surface.
Removing the slabs created enough open ground to reconsider the whole 4-by-4-meter layout instead of fitting plants into pots around the old patio.
Pulling Up the Pavers Exposed Bare Ground
Once the slabs came out, bare sandy soil filled most of the courtyard. The timber strips beside the house remained, giving the new garden a fixed edge rather than stripping the site down to every last surface.
The cleared ground also exposed roots and an old stump near the fence. Those existing elements became part of the space the new path and planting areas had to work around.
Round Stepping Stones Set the New Route
Large oval stones were placed across the soil before gravel covered the route. Their staggered positions replaced the rigid grid created by the former square pavers.
Instead of turning the whole courtyard into another solid surface, the stones established a route through the center while leaving broad sections of soil open for planting.
Gravel Grid Created the Curved Path
Black cellular grid was cut and positioned around the stepping stones, forming a curved path from the house toward the rear fence. The material created a defined gravel zone without extending it across the whole courtyard.
Black edging separated the path from the future beds. Curves around the grid produced several planting pockets rather than two narrow borders pushed against the fence.
Existing Stump Stayed Inside the New Layout
A large stump and root mass occupied part of the rear section once the paving disappeared. Removing the slabs made the scale of the obstruction clear.
The new layout left room around it rather than forcing a straight path through the same area. Gravel, planting, and the curved bed line could follow the available ground.
Dark Fence Changed the Garden Backdrop
The timber fence received a dark brown-black finish while the courtyard was open. Against the original pale paving, the fence had read as another aging surface. Against green foliage, it became a dark background.
Existing ivy remained above sections of the fence, so the new plants would connect with greenery that was already established around the courtyard.
Plants Added Different Heights Across the Beds
The garden-center cart shows a mix built around foliage as much as flowers. Burgundy heucheras (coral bells) provide the red and near-black leaves, while the silver-green heart-shaped foliage appears to be Brunnera, likely one of the silver-leaf cultivars. Variegated Euonymus adds cream-edged evergreen leaves, with compact green hebe bringing another low shrub form.
A taller dark-leaf shrub, which appears to be a smoke bush (Cotinus), adds height and deep purple foliage. Together, the plants give the small courtyard burgundy, green, silver, and cream at several heights, so the beds don’t depend on flowers for color.
Gravel Covered the Grid Without Hiding the Stepping Stones
Reddish gravel filled the cellular grid and surrounded each stepping stone. The grid disappeared below the finished surface, but its curved footprint remained visible through the shape of the path.
The gravel also separated the pale stepping stones from the dark soil beds, creating three distinct ground surfaces inside a courtyard measuring only four meters across.
Planting Beds Replaced Most of the Former Hard Surface
Fresh soil filled the spaces left between the gravel route, timber edge, and fence. Shrubs and perennials now occupy ground that had been covered by concrete slabs.
Plants sit on both sides of the route, so the path passes through the garden rather than running beside a single border. The remaining timber surface near the house provides a hard standing area without requiring paving across the rest of the courtyard.
Finished Courtyard Has Almost No Trace of the Old Patio
The completed space keeps the same 4-by-4-meter footprint, yet the square paved grid has disappeared. Curved beds now wrap around a gravel path, pale stepping stones cross the center, and mixed foliage fills the perimeter.
The homeowner finished the project over the weekend shown in the post and still planned to add a bench near the rear of the path by the fence. With the paving gone, that seat will face into a garden rather than across a slab-covered patio.
Image credits: Reddit user u/carlosadmoura.