Garden plans -- a new patio awaits!

Stockbridge Colonies front yard.
Even a big pregnant woman can
mow this one. Edinburgh.
While we were in Scotland earlier this month, we stayed in our old neighborhood. It happens to have some of the most adorable collections front yard gardens I've ever seen. The Stockbridge Colonies were originally built as low-income housing for the worker classes. Nowadays it's a fairly posh address and a tight-knit community. It's not, however, ostentatious in the least. The stone buildings have small, uniform apartments and streets so narrow that most people dare not drive down them.

I fell in love with our garden on Hugh Miller Place (see right) when we were living there in 2012. It was a simple small round area of grass bordered by perennials and a small shed. It took me about three minutes to mow the lawn -- and that was when I was 9-months pregnant. I'd sit out there for hours in the summer and read or write.
Patio in the Stockbridge Colonies

We stayed a few blocks over, on Bell Place, during our last trip. The front yard area was the same in size, but the owners had replaced all the lawn with a lovely patio. It wasn't simply paved concrete, however. It was a nice mix of river pebbles and paving stones.

Being that I don't have a front porch in our Louisville home, I now want to recreate that patio in our front yard here. We spent part of the weekend digging up a lot of my front yard vegetable garden to make room for our new patio. I'll keep you posted, but I'm pretty excited to dine al fresco and catch up with the neighbors at the same time.

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