Southern Gardening Guide

Spruce up your garden with fresh ideas and simple how-tos

Lush Life: 5 Ways to Maximize Your Outdoor Space

Marquette Clay’s Oklahoma City home is tiny, but what he did to the garden is huge. With a keen eye for design and color, this landscape contractor proves that sometimes less is much more.

Build the Largest Structure Your Budget Will Allow
Photo by: Ralph Anderson

Build the Largest Structure Your Budget Will Allow

Contrary to what you may think, dinky decks and cramped patios make tight spaces seem even smaller. Marquette crafted his arbor from cedar posts set atop concrete pads. Drawing inspiration from a lone cedar tree that grew in his backyard, the resourceful designer got posts from area tree-trimming companies to build the 12- by 12-foot structure that covers his entire patio space.

Marquette (at left) mixed two sizes of Aztec gravel together so it would lock into place.


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