Transform Your Patio Into a Backyard Oasis | Yard Couture

Features That Will Transform Your Patio Into a Backyard Oasis

Backyard patios can serve as a place to personally retreat or to relax with friends. While patio chairs and a table are a must, other features can greatly enhance the atmosphere of this space. If you want to improve your home's patio, use these luxury features to transform it into a backyard oasis.

Firepit

Perhaps the most practical luxury backyard patio feature is the firepit. A firepit provides a self-contained place where you can safely have a fire, and the fire has long served as a feature around which people gather.

The ambiance of a fire can put everyone at ease, and it provides something to watch during the occasional silence. A fire also provides light and heat. Light will encourage people to linger longer into the night, and heat will extend your use of the patio into cooler months.

Traditionalists sometimes insist on wood fire, and a wood firepit is the simplest design to set up. Stacking wood requires effort, but the logs can serve as an aesthetically pleasing visual blockade once they're stacked. A line of stacked wood could block part of the neighbor's yard, your garbage cans, or even a detached shed from view.

If you don't want to go through the effort of stacking wood every season and actually building fires from scratch, gas and propane firepits are more convenient options that still provide a natural flame.

Some homeowners choose a wood fireplace when they have energy and switch to a gas or propane model once they're older. Switching out a wood model for a gas one is simple enough.

Fire and Water Bowl

Fire and water bowls are an alternative to standard firepits. The combination bowls usually either surround the fire with a ring of water or add a small waterfall onto a firepit.

Either variation has a striking juxtaposition that makes a statement. If you choose to add a fire and water bowl, make it a prominent fixture of your patio design. You can either put it directly in the center of the patio or on one side that the furniture faces.

Bowls that have both fire and water usually rely on gas or propane and not wood. The water can lose some of its appeal if wood chips are floating in it, and reaching over water to set up a wood fire is inconvenient. Should small pieces of wood get into the filter of a water feature, the whole water system could back up. Gas and propane don't present any of these issues.

Metal Planters

Custom metal planters are ideal for outdoor patios, as they're some of the most durable planters you could use. Metal won't rot like wood will, and they don't leach any chemicals, as pressure-treated wood might. Metal also won't become brittle in extreme heat or extreme cold, like plastic sometimes does, and a stray baseball won't break a metal planter.

In short, metal planters will last and look good for years. You won't have to replace them after a season or two.

Because metal planters will last for years, use ones that are larger than you need right now. You'll want plenty of room for the plants that go into them to grow, both as they spread out and as they send roots down deep into the soil.

Additionally, consider purchasing more than one metal planter. Having greenery will look nice and creates the feeling of being in nature. Taller plants that metal planters can hold also act as nice hedges or visual blockades.

For firepits or metal planters that will look good on your patio, check out the pieces available at Yard Couture.