I don't generally use my patio as a living space for socializing or hanging out. I often use it for purposes related to gardening, yard work, and photography. If I pull up plants with their roots, especially violet wood sorrel, I drop them on the patio on their way to the trash.
If I buy a plant from a nursery or grow seedlings under lights indoors, I use the patio as a way station before putting the plants in the ground. Similarly, I put trays of seedlings there for parts of suitable days to get them accustomed to being outdoors.
Sometimes I neglect the patio, leaving out buckets and other plastic containers that I have used for yard or garden work. If it then rains, standing water sits in those containers until I dump the water on the grass. This can allow mosquito larvae to develop and, I assume, a variety of other microbiolical processes to take place.
From late fall to early spring, oak leaves fall on the roof and the patio. The wind moves the leaves around, sometimes in a back and forth motion. This process results in a thick accumulation of leaves in the breezeway when I don't sweep them up on a daily basis.
September 24, 2013 was a damp day, and a large number of water oak acorns had fallen on the patio.
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On May 11, 2014, I had the back patio in pretty good order. The square pot was in the northwest corner of the patio, where it would remain at least until the summer of 2017, and the wheelbarrow was in its established place. The plastic bags contain either neighborhood leaves to be shredded, or already shredded leaves. The breezeway in the small area behind the bars. The kitchen window is to the left, behind an extension of the herb garden (in the left foreground), and the back wall of the garage is to the right, behind the myrtle bed.
