Sometimes with a patio, it can be best to wipe the slate clean, or build it from slate completely! We love it’s sleek, classy shade and texture, making it the ideal candidate for a patio base. It’s a material that oozes elegance, as well as being very durable and a 100% natural material. Slate paving stones are available in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes, meaning that each patio built using them is completely unique. While it’s fair to say that slate isn’t the cheapest option for paving a patio, its benefits make it worth the higher cost. In the following listicle, we’ll be covering some of our favorite examples of slate patio designs, from a more classic style to some of the more creative ones. Scroll on for some superb slate patio ideas!
Slate Patio Ideas
Here we look at several concepts for slate patios. While you can get slate patio blocks online, your best bet is likely to purchase them at your local landscape supply company.
We should note that Home Depot is now carrying quite attractive porcelain patio pavers that look fantastic, and are surprisingly inexpensive.
Slate for Swimming
One of slate’s many great qualities is that it’s slip resistant, meaning that it’s a great choice for backyards with a pool, or in more drizzly climates. If you’ve got (or want) a pool in the garden, this is your safest bet for surrounding it to ensure that kids and guests don’t injure themselves after swimming.
Not only is this design practical, but it looks great too. The blue-ish tones of the tiling complement the pool’s surface perfectly.
Here, it also works to highlight the white coloring of the pillars and furniture.
Back to Basics
If you’re not looking for anything particularly extravagant with the design and layout of your patio, this is for you. Classic and straightforward, the slate slabs are arranged in a linear fashion and clearly separated from the grass.
This is one of the more uniform tile layouts, meaning that the slate itself won’t detract from any of the other features in your garden. In this example, the grassy space is obviously a highlight, with the patio serving practically.
The blue of the slate and green of the grass gel perfectly, creating a subtle palette for the backyard.
Magical Moss
Lining the slate slabs with moss is an understated way of adding greenery to the backyard. Slate is classy but incredibly modern and clean-looking – perhaps a little too much so for some gardeners. To remedy this, growing moss between the stones can be a good way to keep the patio looking natural.
The moss-grown between slabs is accentuated by their irregular shapes in this example, working to create an intricate, maze-like effect.
Furthermore, we love that this example looks like a bistro set in some kind of ancient site, looking stylistically overgrown with the mixture of greenery and different types of stone: slate and exposed brick.
This mossy look works much better in a backyard whose main feature is its patio, without any grassy areas or flower beds that may contribute clashing tones. The stylishly unkempt look here would be totally undermined by a pristine flower bed border.
Life with Borders
Contrary to the last design, this bordered look is absolutely made for patios that share a backyard with grassy spaces and flower beds. Lining the slate areas of your patios with a lighter type of stone (like in the bar seating area here) can work to add definition to the space. It creates a subtle separation between the outdoor living set areas from the rest.
This definition is especially necessary if the patio space takes up an oddly-shaped area like the one pictured. Not all patios have to have straight edges, so the addition of a bordered edge will enhance curved or wiggly edges.
It’s especially useful when separating the patio from a built-in flower bed, working to differentiate between the two spaces and contrast between the slate patio and earthy bed.
The Perfect Pond Patio
How cute is this cut-out pond? Its starkness and geometry in the context of a smooth, uniformly paved patio like this give the backyard such a modern feel.
The raised flower bed around the border works to give the patio a bit of character, making it feel a little busier than it otherwise would be with such uniform tiles. Also, when combined with the pond and its lilies, the slate is made to feel much softer and more natural. The space pictured is relatively small, but the patio, flower beds, furniture, and pond make it feel like it’s got a lot of space with so much going on.
The white picket fence around the backyard’s perimeter makes it feel very clean and wholesome as an outdoor setup, framing the perfectly pruned and proportioned patio. We’re also loving the teak living furniture that works particularly against the slate.
Going Round in Circles
Sometimes, a little corner of slate can look great on a patio that’s mainly made up of other materials. Slate can be quite pricey, so for some gardeners having the whole patio full of it can be out of the question.
This design, however, won’t be too hard on the bank account, using very little slate in a creative way.
Here, the irregular slabs have been arranged into a circle in the corner of a patio, creating a defined little area for furniture. The design complements the rocky flowerbed border, creating a blue-grey patchwork of various different shapes, sizes, and types of stone.
Patchwork Patio
This colorful slate stands out for its many different shades and colors. Ranging from purple to orange, via blue, this type of paving works well with simpler garden layouts.
The colorful tiles will become distracting in any environment other than a pretty minimalist patio design, so if the patio itself is the main feature of your backyard, this is the design for you.
This pattern works well when it spans the entire space, so wall climbing plants are a must if you’re considering this pattern.
Furthermore, it complements exposed stone of a similar shade best, or walls and fences that are painted a single, plain color so as not to clash or detract from its technicolor.
Getting on your Level
If your garden spans across two levels (or more) it can be really effective to have a singular pattern and style across each level. This works to create a sense of uniformity and style that functions best in a more modern garden, such as the one pictured.
The deep blue color of the slate feels elegant and will work to bring out the sky’s color during spells of good weather, and we love the way the built-in bench works!
Seeking a sleek, modern look, this garden separates its greenery from the uniform slate patio. The regularity of the slabs themselves across the two levels requires a minimal plant population, so as not to detract from the chic, contemporary layout.
Get On Your Knees and Gravel
This is another great example of how to break up the slate tiles used on a patio. Much subtler than the moss, gravel is in keeping with the stone theme.
The uniformity of the gravel also highlights the colors of the slate, making it an extra special part of the patio design.
Gravel is also much easier to control than moss growth and can look much tidier. As is the case with moss, this design works best when breaking up the space between irregular slate slabs.
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