The weather may be cooling down, but there’s still plenty of backyard fun to be had, especially with a few key additions to your patio. Planning for landscaping changes? Here are 9 landscape design ideas to consider on Long Island, NY.

Whether your patio is party central and you entertain frequently - or it’s a private zen retreat where you like to relax and unplug - or you have not only your own kids but the neighborhood kids at your house all afternoon - your patio is the hub of it all.

The perfect patio for one person may not work for another so it’s essential to make a list of how you plan on using the space, what specific activities you need to accommodate, how much available space you have, and your design preferences.

Size isn’t everything: design is. You can fit a surprising amount of distinct activities on even a small but well-designed patio.

Once you’ve narrowed down how you’re going to use the patio, it’s time to start planning where the individual elements will go. The following are the key elements that truly make outdoor living a pleasure:

Outdoor Kitchen

Whether your culinary skills center around a grill or if you love to wow your friends and family with gourmet creations, you’ll need a functional space to cook in, and a comfortable space for dining. This could be a simple grill station with a separate dining table or fire table. Or, an L-shaped cooking space with your prep and cooking area on one “leg” and bar seating on the other. Or, you could go with a full U-shaped outdoor kitchen with all the amenities your heart desires.

One of the more fun elements of an outdoor cooking area is a wood-fired masonry pizza oven. This could be a stand-alone feature or integrated into your kitchen area: and it guarantees a crowd every time you fire it up.

A Permanent Shelter

When the Texas sun is frying you to a crisp or a sudden downpour sends everyone running indoors, you can be sure that the party could stay outside with the addition of a permanent shelter structure.

A Pergola: Perfect for Beating the Heat

A pergola, with its open sides and open rafters, allows air to circulate; and more importantly, it keeps you in the shade for most of the day while the breezes cool you off. This elegant outdoor structure is a natural part of outdoor living. If you want an even more filtered light effect, you could put a bamboo screen or grow evergreen vines on top of the pergola: this approach will still let hot air escape, but will add shade when the sun is directly overhead.

If you prefer the look of a pergola, you could add clear polycarbonate sheet roofing to maintain the open feel but add protection from rain (though keep in mind this isn’t as durable as a permanent solid roof).

A Pavilion: Perfect for All-Weather Entertaining

A pavilion is like a pergola in that it features open sides. However, the roof is solid, giving the space a covered porch feel. Let it rain while you relax comfortably within the structure. A pavilion also opens up possibilities for outdoor movie nights in any weather: add a projection screen to one side of the pavilion, a bar on the other, and seating in the middle, and enjoy the game or a movie together.

Since a pergola and a pavilion can be any size, this lets you customize your outdoor living experience. Depending on the size of your patio, a pergola or a pavilion can be just small enough to shelter a seating area or small bar; or, they can be large enough to cover most or even all of your patio space. Its size will depend on the available space, your intended uses, and of course your budget. You can choose styles that range from classical to rustic to ultramodern: whatever fits with your design theme.

Make your outdoor shelter more festive with the addition of some string lights, climbing plants, a gas-fired fire feature, and comfortable outdoor furniture - and you might not set foot in the house when the weather is warm enough to be outside.

Modern Outdoor Living Designs

It used to be that a patio would be a basic slab of poured concrete or a wood or composite deck outside the kitchen door. However, today the design - and the materials choices - are much more sophisticated and aligned with how people really use outdoor spaces.

Your landscape may be mostly flat, but your outdoor living spaces could utilize subtle elevation changes to add visual interest and give each space its own unique character.

For example, the main patio could be made using patio pavers, and house features such as an outdoor kitchen and dining space. An offshoot of the patio could be a slightly elevated pergola-covered deck (just one step higher than the patio) that houses your seating area. Another offshoot of the patio could be a sunken space paved with natural stone, and featuring a large outdoor fireplace: the perfect cozy spot for late-night conversation. In other words, you can treat your outdoor living spaces much like your home, where rooms are clearly defined.

This approach allows you to bring nature closer, too. You could surround each “peninsula” of your patio with interesting plantings (all the better if they’re water-wise and low-maintenance) to add a more intimate feel. This will make your landscape much more interesting, too, than a patio surrounded by the standard American lawn. As a bonus, choosing the right plants means you’ll get to spend more time outdoors relaxing and entertaining, than taking care of a fussy lawn.

When it comes to patio surfaces, less is more in modern designs: where the last few decades embraced embellishments such as contrasting borders, modern design is more minimalist and sleek. It puts the emphasis on the inherent beauty of the materials rather than adding to the visual impact with ornamentation. The result is more soothing to the eye, and lets you mix and match materials throughout your outdoor living space without a visually cluttered feel.

With that said, it’s best to stick to no more than three different surfaces (again, going back to our example of pavers, natural stone, and decking) and if you do take this approach, keeping the designs clean and simple.

Easygoing Surfaces

The last thing you want to do is add to your to-do list: so choosing durable, hard-wearing and low-maintenance materials for your outdoor living space is a must. Patio pavers are tough enough to withstand heavy daily use; natural stone is of course the original building material; and composite decking gives you the wonderful appeal of wood without the maintenance.

If you choose patio pavers or natural stone, regular sealing is a must to prevent spilled food, beverages, pool chemicals, and other mishaps from staining the surface.

Which material is best? While composite decking doesn’t need to be sealed, it also won’t last as long as pavers or natural stone. You could opt for a mix of materials, as suggested in the “Modern Outdoor Living Designs” section, and get the best of everything: durable sealed pavers underfoot in your outdoor kitchen; easygoing decking in your seating area (which has lower traffic) and natural stone elsewhere in your design: truly a forever choice with endless character.

More Privacy

Nothing is more awkward than relaxing in a fishbowl-style backyard. The solution can be a privacy fence - but at the risk of making the space feel boxed in. A better solution is to mix your privacy materials to get the job done, but in style.

For example: on the ugly-view or nosy-neighbors side, go for a tall privacy fence. You can always encourage climbing vines to give it a greener appearance, or install a vertical garden. On the windiest side, you could use masonry: a large outdoor fireplace with a built-in wood-fired pizza oven and flanked by water features will not only create an absolutely stunning focal point, but will also block the cold wind and make the space feel cozier all year. A privacy screen (a simple structure of horizontal planks which could be attached to your outdoor shelter structure, or you can block a view while preserving an open feeling with a freestanding trellis-style screen that can be adorned with climbing roses, bougainvillea, or any number of climbing plants.

Fire

Other than an outdoor kitchen, no feature encourages gatherings more than a fire feature. And there’s no reason to choose just one!

Aside from food, nothing will encourage people to gather on your patio more than a fire feature that transforms your patio into a cozy and inviting outdoor living room.

A fire pit could be centrally located as a functional focal point that allows a large group of people to share equally in the warmth. If you want, you could even create a “destination” spot remote from the patio. Use a fire table instead of a traditional outdoor dining table, for added drama. And create an elegant space using an outdoor fireplace - an infinitely customizable feature that can be as simple or extravagant as you like.

A Permeable Paver Driveway

Bring the gorgeous look of pavers all around your house with a permeable paver driveway upgrade. In this system, the pavers are impervious to water, but they are spaced a bit further apart and set on a special substrate to allow rain to filter through to the aquifer instead of running off onto your landscaping or overwhelming the municipal storm system. When you consider how much water flows off a solid surface driveway (and the amount is astonishing) you can see that pavers are a more eco-friendly approach to this utilitarian feature than poured concrete or asphalt. It’s also much more durable and long-lasting, and of course it has immense curb appeal; the variety of choices mean endless design possibilities.

Planning for Landscaping Changes? Here Are 9 Landscape Design Ideas to Consider on Long Island NY