When it comes to designing and creating a patio on your backyard, you have got a lot of options out there. One of my favorite ways to built a patio is to just use DG, otherwise known as Decomposed Granite and what this is, is a crushed rock just about quarter-inch in size, all the way down to dust. It's a cheaper alternative to brick or paver patios and have some real advantages. DG has a softer look, it allows water to drain through but locks together like concrete to make a stable surface for furniture. As they are likely grating the area, we are going to create a border, lay down landscape fabric and base rock, then top it with our DG .

First things first, contain your patio. What I am using to contain that with is is 4 x 4 pressure treated post. This is just taking an electric drill putting in auger bit and the auger bit actually drills in and removes the wood as it comes back out. I need that to be cleaned so that I can take and pound in about a 2 foot length of rebar. You don't really have to worry about the ground being so level when you are working with DG because you can level off the top and work with all the imperfections of the ground underneath.

Now I am putting down this landscape fabric to keep weeds and grass from coming through. You want to get this down before applying gravel. And the next material that's coming in here is going to be base rock right on top of this. DG cost a little bit more then base rock. Well, I like to put a nice path layer of base rock underneath and then just put my nice looking DG on top. No one will ever know, and it's going to give me a nice foundation for my DG patio. Base rock is basically three-quarter inch down the dust. I could do my entire patio out of base rocks, it just doesn't look as nice. Alright, now if you building any kind of gravel patio, you will want at least 4 inches of gravel as a surface to walk on. So 2 inches of base rock and then top that off, 2 inches of DG.

I have got a couple inches of material down, I want to water this in, it will help to settle it out, knock down the dust and allow me to come in here with my next material layered on top, and keep the two from mixing together.

Alright this a final step. I can bring in my DG. Spread this beautiful rock, flatten it out a little bit and there you go; you can take a little tamper like I have here. This is an 8 x 8, you can buy them a little bit larger. Check your edges, come right beneath this board here, make sure you buy enough rock material because this will settle in, like I said you are going to tamper it into place, you are going to water it in. You want to have enough there to really fill in your space and your patio is complete.