Wasted Backyard Space? How Landscape Design and Paver Patio Add Flow in Ann Arbor, MI

landscape design and paver patio ann arbor mi

If your backyard feels like a blank slate—or worse, a wasted opportunity—you’re not alone. Many properties in Ann Arbor have beautiful potential that just isn’t being used. The good news? You don’t have to settle for a patch of grass and a rickety deck. With professional landscape design and paver patio in Ann Arbor, MI, that underused space can transform into something intentional, connected, and deeply enjoyable. Our design team specializes in creating high-end outdoor spaces tailored to the way you actually want to live.

How Landscape Design and a Paver Patio Add Flow

A professionally designed landscape isn’t just about filling space—it’s about how that space feels and functions. When done right, landscape design and a paver patio add purposeful flow between the home and the outdoors, stitching together structure, softness, and movement.

Your backyard may already have potential—it just needs a strong foundation. And that starts with a patio designed for both beauty and performance.

Build a Foundation That Lasts Year-Round

Start with the patio. In our climate, hard surface features need to endure snow, ice, spring rain, and Michigan’s dramatic shifts between seasons. That’s why we install high-quality paver patios that hold up beautifully over time. Whether the design calls for a clean-lined modular layout or a more relaxed, natural stone appearance, we ensure every paver is laid with intention, stability, and longevity in mind.

Freeze-thaw resistance, traction underfoot, and long-lasting color are just the beginning. Every paver is chosen for both performance and appearance. In our area, that means thinking not just about how the patio will look in July, but how it will hold up in January, too.

Extend Movement With Walkways

Once the paver patio is in place, it becomes the anchor for everything else. Our team designs walkways that extend from the patio and guide movement naturally across the space. These walkways aren't just practical—they’re an opportunity to create rhythm and subtle drama in the landscape.

A curved walkway might lead from the patio to a secondary seating area, or a direct line might create a formal axis between the back entrance and a detached garage. We use the same durable paver materials as the patio or complement the design with a contrasting color or pattern. The result is a seamless transition that feels intuitive and grounded.

Soften Transitions With Planting Beds

Planting beds add structure, texture, and seasonal movement—but they also soften the edges of your patio. Our landscape designers use plantings to define space, guide views, and bring a lushness that hard surfaces alone can’t provide.

By blending native shrubs, ornamental grasses, and perennial blooms, we create compositions that shift gently with the seasons and maintain visual interest all year long. These beds often run alongside walkways or wrap the patio’s edge, helping to ground the structure and nestle it into the landscape.

And because we install plantings suited to our hardiness zone, you can expect lasting performance, not short-lived results.

Define Zones Without Building Walls

Many homeowners think they need to build walls or structures to separate uses in a backyard. Not always. Through strategic layout, paver shape, lighting, and planting, we define distinct outdoor "rooms" without interrupting the visual flow.

A dining area can be subtly set apart from a lounge area through the paver pattern or orientation. A shift in elevation—just a single step—can create the sense of a new experience. Even lighting zones can help indicate different uses once the sun goes down.

Designing this way keeps the landscape open, airy, and connected, rather than feeling chopped up or overbuilt.

Light the Way

Flow doesn’t end at dusk. Outdoor lighting ensures that your landscape continues to function and feel inviting well into the evening. We install strategically placed low-voltage lighting to accentuate walkways, illuminate patio edges, and highlight key plantings.

This not only extends the usability of your space, but also adds depth and texture after dark. When the right lighting is in place, your paver patio becomes a quiet retreat at twilight, a hosting space for summer dinners, or a peaceful spot for morning coffee under early light.

Because our lighting installations are built to withstand Michigan’s weather and seasonality, they continue to enhance your property year-round, without sacrificing efficiency or style.

How to Design a Landscape Around a Patio

Once the paver patio is in place, everything around it should work in harmony. The surrounding landscape is where mood, movement, and experience all come to life—and this is where our design team brings in the layers that make your outdoor space truly complete.

Our landscape designers begin by understanding how you want to use your space. Is the patio a peaceful morning retreat? A backdrop for Friday night dinner with friends? A visual anchor from inside your home? Every detail we design serves that larger purpose.

Install Trees for Shade and Structure

Trees aren’t just for greenery—they’re strategic design tools. A well-placed tree can filter strong afternoon sun, create a sense of privacy, and add vertical interest to the space. Our team selects tree varieties suited for our southeast Michigan climate and your specific site conditions, ensuring that the tree won’t overwhelm your patio or compete with nearby features.

When we install trees near a patio, we think about root spread, future canopy growth, and seasonal impact. It's never random—it’s part of the larger choreography.

Wrap the Edges With Planting Beds

The space around your patio should feel finished, not forgotten. We design and install planting beds that wrap the patio edges with texture, movement, and softness. Think ornamental grasses swaying in the breeze, blooming perennials that shift with the seasons, and evergreens that hold the space together year-round.

These beds don’t just look good—they serve a purpose. They frame views, guide the eye, and create a buffer between the hard surface of the patio and the rest of the landscape. Every bloom, shrub, and edge matters.

Connect With Walkways That Guide Movement

A patio shouldn’t feel like an island. To give it purpose and connection, we install walkways that link it to key areas of your property—your driveway, your back door, a detached structure, or a secondary seating area.

Our walkways are built using the same quality pavers as your patio, offering visual continuity and long-lasting performance. The layout may be formal and straight or curved and meandering—either way, the goal is to make your landscape feel like a journey, not a series of dead ends.

Use Outdoor Lighting to Extend Enjoyment

We install outdoor lighting not just to see, but to feel. Softly lit patio edges, illuminated walkways, and uplighting in the plantings around your patio can turn a quiet evening into an experience.

Our lighting layouts are subtle, layered, and designed to blend into the landscape. Fixtures are selected for both durability and aesthetic, built to perform through snow, rain, and summer humidity. And once they’re in place, they extend the use of your space from daylight into dusk without skipping a beat.

Designed for Michigan. Designed for You.

We don’t install cookie-cutter landscapes. We design for our climate and for your lifestyle. That means factoring in winter snow loads, spring runoff, wind exposure, sun angles, and seasonal shifts when designing everything around your patio.

Each tree, paver, light fixture, and planting bed is placed with purpose. Because in a professionally designed landscape, every element should pull its weight—and pull you in.

How to Plant Around a Patio

Planting around a patio is where the structure of the design meets the softness of nature—and it’s one of the most important ways to shape how a space feels. You want lush, layered plantings that create atmosphere, movement, and color, but without overwhelming the patio itself. That balance takes more than good taste—it takes regional knowledge, careful planning, and expert installation.

Because Ann Arbor sits in USDA Hardiness Zone 6a, the plantings we install must hold up to cold winters, damp springs, and humid summers. At Local Life Maintenance Group, we take those factors into account from the start. But climate tolerance is just the beginning—we design for longevity, rhythm, and visual interest in every season.

Keep Taller Plantings Away From Seating Zones

A common mistake in backyard landscapes is placing tall blooms or shrubs too close to patios and seating areas. While the intention might be privacy, the result is often a space that feels tight or overgrown. Our team maintains an open, breathable edge around the patio while still giving you visual softness.

Taller plantings are used strategically—perhaps to frame a view or provide a gentle screen along a property line. But the space immediately surrounding your patio remains open and comfortable, never crowded.

Use Perennials for Reliable Texture and Form

Perennials are the backbone of any low-maintenance, high-style landscape. We install varieties that thrive in our region’s climate and soil conditions, offering foliage and blooms that return season after season. These plantings give your patio a sense of consistency and maturity, even in the first few years.

Depending on sun exposure and site conditions, we might choose flowering varieties like coneflowers or black-eyed Susans, or more structural options like hostas or sedum. Perennials provide the long game—and they’re part of what makes a patio landscape feel deeply rooted in place.

Accent With Annuals for Seasonal Color

To keep things dynamic, we complement our perennial base with annuals that add seasonal personality and bursts of color. These can be tucked into beds, containers, or along walkway edges, depending on how you want to experience the space.

Annuals allow you to shift the palette from spring to summer to fall—bright petunias one month, fiery mums the next. Because we know what thrives here, we’ll help you strike the right balance between seasonal interest and sustainable maintenance.

Group Plantings for Visual Rhythm

We don’t scatter plants randomly through a bed. Instead, we install groupings of the same species to create rhythm and cohesion. This repetition draws the eye across the landscape and gives your patio a sense of connection to its surroundings.

We play with texture, color, height, and spacing to ensure that the planting design feels intentional and balanced, not chaotic or cluttered. Whether the overall style is modern and minimalist or lush and layered, the goal is a planting arrangement that feels unified.

Use Evergreens and Grasses for Structure and Screening

Evergreens and ornamental grasses do more than fill space—they bring essential texture and structure, especially in the winter months. We often install them near the patio’s edge or at key points in the surrounding planting beds to maintain visual interest year-round.

Grasses provide softness and movement, especially when lit from below in the evening. Evergreens anchor the space and offer subtle privacy without feeling closed off. Both types of plantings give the landscape a sense of stability and form.

Should Pavers Have a Border?

A border around your paver patio plays an essential structural and aesthetic role. It gives the patio definition, keeps everything in place, and elevates the overall design from standard to standout. At Local Life Maintenance Group, we treat the border as a design feature in its own right, not an afterthought.

Every paver patio we construct includes edge restraints, which are crucial for long-term performance. These hidden supports prevent lateral movement and shifting, especially through Michigan’s seasonal freeze-thaw cycles. But above that structural layer, the visible border becomes a creative opportunity.

Define the Space With Visual Contrast

A paver border can create a subtle or dramatic contrast, depending on your style. A darker band around a lighter field of pavers adds clean definition and draws the eye inward. For a softer transition, we may use the same material in a different pattern or orientation. Either way, the border defines the shape and gives the patio a sense of completion, like a frame around a finished piece of art.

Reinforce Shape and Symmetry

Borders reinforce the geometry of your design. Whether your patio is curved, rectangular, or freeform, the right border sharpens the layout and guides movement. It helps the space feel structured, polished, and thoughtfully composed—because it is.

Tie In Adjacent Features

Your paver border can also be a link between the patio and surrounding elements, such as walkways or steps. Choosing a complementary color or pattern helps maintain a cohesive look across the entire landscape. It’s a subtle detail, but one that makes a space feel fully connected.

Most Popular Paver Patterns

While there are many ways to lay pavers, one pattern continues to rise to the top with discerning homeowners: herringbone. It's not just popular for its good looks—it’s also incredibly strong underfoot.

The herringbone pattern, especially when laid at a 45-degree angle, provides exceptional interlock. That makes it ideal for patios that see plenty of movement—furniture being pulled out, foot traffic in every direction, and seasonal shifts in our Michigan soil. Visually, it brings a sense of motion and complexity without overwhelming the space. And it blends beautifully with both classic and modern home styles.

Still, it’s far from the only option. At Local Life Maintenance Group, we offer several refined paver patterns, each selected based on how it complements your patio size, surrounding plantings, and overall landscape layout.

Running Bond: Clean and Contemporary

The running bond pattern features pavers laid in a simple offset line, much like traditional brickwork. It’s one of the most versatile options and perfect for long, narrow patios or walkways where you want to draw the eye forward and create visual length. Its understated elegance works especially well with modern home exteriors and clean-lined furniture.

Random Modular: Organic and Unscripted

If your design leans more rustic or naturalistic, a random modular layout might be your best fit. This pattern uses multiple paver sizes arranged in a way that feels spontaneous yet intentional. It creates a relaxed, flowing surface—ideal for natural stone-look pavers or patios surrounded by layered planting beds.

Ashlar: Balanced and Structured

For a patio that demands symmetry and polish, the ashlar pattern delivers. Using varied paver sizes in a repeated geometric format, it’s a more structured take on modular design. Ashlar layouts often pair well with natural stone textures and formal planting schemes, making them a favorite for clients who want something stately but not stiff.

Choosing the Right Pattern for Your Landscape

Each paver pattern tells a different story, and our team helps you choose the one that fits both your aesthetic and the way you plan to use your space. It’s not just about what looks good in a catalog. It’s about how the pattern supports the flow of your patio, complements the surrounding plantings, and fits into the broader rhythm of your landscape.

We guide you through the options, show you real examples, and explain how each layout will look and perform in your space. The result? A patio that feels intentionally designed from every angle—and one that holds up season after season.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Through consistent communication among all our lawn care, landscape maintenance, and irrigation team members, Local Life provides efficient and reliable landscape solutions. From our full property analysis during our maintenance visits to the expert design and construction options we offer, we provide a wide range of services for keeping landscapes beautiful. And our customers’ satisfaction is second to none. Everything we do follows our core values—safety, accountability, continuous learning, teamwork, and integrity. Our knowledgeable team has your property’s best interest at heart.

ResidentialHalstead Media GroupMay 24, 2025Local LifeLandscape Design, outdoor space, Outdoor Living, Paver Patio