Old Concrete Patio Slabs

[harryandmarv]

Trying to improve the garden although we’re strapped for cash. We have a largish area of the old ‘council’ style grey concrete slabs, that have certainly seen much better days. Eventually we would like to either deck the area or replace it with new slabs but that won’t be for some time.

We have jet washed them before, obviously it doesn’t bring them up like new it anything & I really don’t think painting them will be feasible. Facing the garden, they are laid in a portrait way. To the left of the area there is a mosh mash of smaller slabs, some cracked.

I was thinking, what if we were to lift them & lay them landscape way? So like brick style? I’m aware it’s not going to make them look ‘nicer’ or ‘newer’ but it may improve the over all look. The only thing is, there will have to be cut offs at the edge, which isn’t a biggie but will have to find someone who has that tool to do it. I’m just wondering if it’ll be worth all the work or not?!

How big are the slabs? Rather than lift and relay (which sounds like a hell of a lot of work), what about just lifting some, randomly, and creating planting holes. If you planted these up, and surrounded the new plants with gravel, it would break up the space. You could do something similar with the area of broken slabs. Just keep solid space where you need a table and chairs; the rest can be planting holes/gravel/pots.

If you have a particularly bad area you can put a raised bed on the patio and grow herbs.

These are temporary solutions, but would cost very little and improve things until you can replace the patio properly.

Google "planting pockets in patio".

If you have kids, you can also get them to make really fun pebble mosaics in the gaps - again google (and pinterest) are your friends.

I think you could definitely do a few things to make them look good but I would say the council slab style tend to be ridiculously heavy to manoeuvre.