The perfect patio is a destination -- the designated spot for relaxing and entertaining, and a perfect place from which to enjoy the garden. One size definitely does not fit all, but if you plan carefully, you're set up for success.

Patios introduce subtle architecture into the natural environment. They invite you out among the trees and flowers, but a sure footing of stone, brick or gravel assures you that you're not really stepping into the wild. Patios are built for comfort -- they're an extension of your home, an outdoor room where the sky is the limit.

"When I'm designing the perfect patio for a client, the house and the client's wishes give me the answers," says Sally Wittkofski, a landscape architect and owner of SWW Landscape Design in Richmond, Virginia. "Once you find out how they want to use the space, it's easy," she says. "Then you start to work on size, materials and location."

Before you settle on any of those aspects, consider all the ways you might wish to use the patio, Wittkofski suggests. Will it be a cozy spot for dinners for two, a place where you'll entertain a lot, or perhaps some of each? A large patio can serve more than one purpose. Do you need both dining and lounging space? You might also want to allow room for large flowerpots, or you may need to design the space around the trunk of a beautiful tree. A patio can also be the perfect place for a fountain or fire pit.

Patios shouldn't be imposed on a garden, Wittkofski says: They should fit gracefully into it. She has both a front-yard and a backyard patio at her own home. The front-yard patio, made with handsome rough-cut stones set into a 4-inch layer of granite dust, is her favorite. It's a circle 16 feet in diameter nestled under tall trees, just big enough for a table and four chairs. "It's simple, but it works perfectly," she says. Groundcover plants under the trees soften the edges of the space and make it a cool retreat from the hot summer sun, a green refuge. The patios she makes for clients average about 25 by 25 feet.

Deena Bell Llewellyn, a landscape architect and the owner of Bell Landscape Architecture in Miami, works closely with clients to come up with "a wish list and a dream list" for patios she designs. Around older homes, the lists often involve getting rid of existing hardscaping and starting afresh -- her clients are often also installing swimming pools, she says. They want pool patios and patios with outdoor kitchens, fire pits and even yoga platforms. Her measure of success is unequivocal: "We want to make sure these spaces are used all day and all night" -- and practically year-round in south Florida's subtropical climate.

Most clients prefer patios just outside the kitchen or family room -- easily accessible through the home's private back doors, Bell Llewellyn says. To make the transition from inside to outdoors seamless, "we build up, almost level with the interior floor of the home," she says, avoiding a flight of steps, which can be tricky to negotiate if you're carrying a tray of drinks and snacks. "We also study the architecture and make sure we understand its materials and scale -- we want it all to flow as if it were one project."

Around a pool, sunny patios are the rule, Bell Llewellyn says, but a pergola might be added to provide some shade. Elegant roofs protect some of her clients' patios, for rainstorms are frequent in the Miami area. Outdoor lighting with LED fixtures is practically standard, Bell Llewellyn says, with colored filters to heighten the drama of spectacular tropical plants in the evening. When steps are incorporated into a design, she recommends linear rope lighting under the treads for safety, which "also makes the steps seem to float," she says.

If you're shopping for patio ideas, flip through magazines and books for inspiration, but don't commit yourself too quickly to a specific size or shape, Bell Llewellyn and Wittkofski both say. The gently curving lines of a patio designed for a traditional home probably will not translate gracefully to the garden around a modern home of strongly angular architecture. Stone or brick that looks great at one site may not be the right color, texture or pattern at another. "Think of designing a patio as a collaboration between you, the designer and the contractor," Wittkofski says. All three should listen to ideas from the other sides of the table. "If one person says, 'Maybe we should shift this a bit,' they may have a good idea."

Classic mistakes to avoid are: placing a patio in the wrong spot, making it too small, and using the wrong paving materials -- or simply too much of them. Too much paving "feels cold and harsh," Bell Llewellyn says, and it usually causes glare. "You shouldn't feel like you need sunglasses," she says. A good way to find the right spot for a patio in your own backyard might be to walk outside, mark off an area with spray paint and set up a card table and some chairs. Take a cool beverage out there with you, have a seat and look around. You'll know you've found the right spot if you find yourself slipping off your shoes and forgetting, just for a few minutes, the demands of the busy world.

SIDEBAR

Tips from the pros

-- Sally Wittkofski, a landscape architect in Richmond, Virginia, likes to suggest low, flat-topped walls around a patio, for seating. The ideal height is 18 to 24 inches, she says.

-- She discourages clients from adding built-in grills. She finds they limit the flexibility of a patio.

-- Deena Bell Llewellyn, a landscape architect in Miami, on the other hand, says her clients like built-in kitchens, with all the appliances and conveniences they have indoors. A mild climate makes a big difference: in south Florida, people are practically living outdoors.

-- Where should you splurge? Wittkofski and Bell Llewellyn both recommend patios made with natural materials -- brick, stone or gravel. Custom paving patterns and designs allow you to express your style. Wittkofski likes herringbone patterns in brick patios, with basket-weave a close second. The running bond pattern, which has bricks laid end-to-end, looks like a runway, she says.

-- Measure your rooms indoors, and make a patio of comparable size: You don't want one to reflect poorly on the other.

-- Make room in the budget for landscape lighting around the patio.

-- Landscape with plants in large pots. They're more versatile than built-in planters, Wittkofski says.

-- Don't plant a perennial border right next to a patio. "They should be viewed at a distance, so if they're not perfect, you will not notice," Wittkofski says.

-- Choose comfortable, functional furniture appropriate to the style of the rest of your home. "Keep it simple," Wittkofski says. She prefers solid-colored umbrellas to busy stripes.

-- If your budget doesn't allow for generous furniture right away, "that's OK," Wittkofski says. "Splurge on the design and materials, then save for the good furniture. You don't have to do everything at once."

SOURCES:

-- Sally Wittkofski, SWW Landscape Design, 804-357-5119; swwlandscapedesign.com.

-- Deena Bell Llewellyn, Bell Landscape Architecture, 3360 Coral Way, Suite 5, Miami, FL 33145; 305-774-9662; bell-la.com.

Late bloomers put the flash into fall gardens. Just when summer's show is coming to a close, asters, Japanese anemones, sedums and other fall bloomers begin to light up the garden. While daylilies and daisies performed all summer long, these late bloomers were simply waiting their turn. When the time finally comes, they dazzle until frost arrives.

Summer gardens are giddy and glorious, but fall flowers have a different character. They're somehow richer. They're more precious, too -- you waited a long time for them, nurturing the plants through the summer, so they're deeply rewarding. Like the bright, fresh weather, they're invigorating: Change is in the air.

Lots of well-known perennial flowers are among the most steadfast and sparkling fall bloomers. Chrysanthemums, of course, are traditional fall favorites. Sedums, which are extremely drought-tolerant, soldier through the summer and come into vigorous bloom in fall, attracting butterflies to their large flower heads. Monarch butterflies, in particular, visit sedums on their migration path to Mexico.

Early fall is also the season of asters of all kinds and colors, with flowers like clouds of beautiful blues and pinks. Toad lilies produce their freckled, orchidlike blooms on long, arching stems in fall, lighting up shade gardens. Ornamental grasses send up their spectacular inflorescences, shimmering in the autumn light as the days grow shorter.

Fall flowers deserve special consideration in a garden's design. It's nice to grow them along paths or in flower beds close to the house, where you can't miss them -- or you can plant them around the perimeter of the garden, where you'll be drawn outside in the crisp fall days to appreciate their contribution to the new season. Make room for them among summer-blooming annuals and perennials, where they'll provide structure and texture all summer and then extend the season -- giving your flower beds plenty of color and interest all the way to frost.

Garden shops stock good supplies of mums and asters, as well as an increasingly interesting selection of other fall bloomers, perfect for flowerpots for the front porch or patio. They're typically sold in larger containers than spring flowers, so they make a big impact as soon as you plant them. Plants in quart-size nursery pots, or larger, can also be planted right in flower beds to fill in bare spots where summer flowers have faded. They will need a little attention to watering if it doesn't rain, but in fall, cooler temperatures reduce evaporation of moisture from the soil, and even newly planted flowers really shouldn't need much pampering.

A well-designed and nicely situated garden has layers of color and texture, from the flower beds to the treetops. In fall, the blazing reds, rich russets and intense yellow colors of changing leaves on trees get much of the attention, but the trees actually tend to produce their show quite late in the season. Shrubs with great fall flowers fill the middle layer, and they start their show in September. Panicle hydrangeas, with their cone-shaped flower heads, look like living bouquets in a garden. Caryopteris, a small shrub (sometimes called blue mist or bluebeard), is covered with flowers in fall: It seems to glow in the light. Early fall is a perfect time to walk around a garden shop looking for shrubs with autumn interest. You might spot Bloomerang lilacs, Encore azaleas, or Bloomstruck hydrangeas, which all produce a fresh round of showy flowers in early fall. Roses usually put on a strong fall display, too. Their colors are brighter in cooler fall weather, their fragrance is more intense and the blooms last longer.

Don't forget the details. A few pansies or violas here and there in the garden bloom reliably through the fall, and even weather the winter in many areas. Their bright, charming faces will draw you outdoors in all kinds of weather. Fall-blooming crocus, tucked into a spot along the front walk, will greet you and your guests with an unexpected and welcome flash of purple. The charming, reflexed petals of hardy cyclamen flowers in a shade garden look like exotic little butterflies.

Early fall is way too soon to give up on the garden. The days are growing shorter, and summer's flowers are fading, but autumn has its own colors and cadence. Make sure some of the season's fireworks go off in your backyard.

The end of the summer is just the beginning of a new season of delicious harvests in a vegetable garden. No matter where you live or how much space you have, it's easy to grow fall crops -- in garden beds or in pots.

"Fall and winter gardening is a no-brainer," says Andrea Mull, who works on seed and vegetable trials at Territorial Seed Company in Oregon. In the Pacific Northwest, she says, fall gardening "is kind of a specialty we do," but she recommends it for gardeners everywhere. Cold climate gardeners have learned that fall and winter are ideal for beautiful leafy greens of all kinds, including lettuce and mesclun mixes, kale, collards and chard, and for root crops such as carrots, beets, parsnips and turnips. A late-summer sowing of peas will produce a healthy harvest of both peas and pea shoots for heavenly salads in the fall. Tomatoes, of course, are out of the question unless you live in an area completely without freezes.

Vegetables in the brassica family -- kale, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts and cabbage -- produce their best and most delicious harvests in cooler fall temperatures. They actually taste even better after a touch of frost.

Although the days are growing shorter, conditions in the fall are great for growing, Mull says. The population of garden pests plummets as summer fades away. Rainfall may be more reliable, and soil moisture isn't lost to evaporation as quickly as it is in summer's heat. Temperatures in fall are also more comfortable: Neither you nor your crops will have to fight the heat.

Fall crops fall into two categories: those you plant and harvest before the holidays, and those that stay in the ground through the winter, to harvest in very early spring. It's easy to keep track of: Launch your fall garden with vegetables in the first group, those you can pick in the fall. Now is the time to plant them.

"We plant a lot in August," says Renee Shepherd, owner of Renee's Garden seed company. By the end of summer, "I've had all the zucchini I want," Shepherd says, and she is ready for kale, spinach, Swiss chard and Asian bok choy and tatsoi. "It's a great time for baby leaf mixes, and for lots of herbs, the ones you want to use every day." Shepherd's business is in northern California, but her company also has a trial garden in Vermont, where fall crops flourish with the help of lightweight fabric row covers, a low-tech way to keep the garden growing through nippy fall weather. She also plants radishes in late summer and early fall, along with kohlrabi, escarole and broccoli rabe.

Finding a place for fall vegetables can be a challenge if your tomato plants are still producing and the peppers are just hitting their stride. Claim some space on the family picnic table and start seeds in six-packs, Shepherd suggests, to give them a head start, and then make room for the little seedlings when you take out your old bean and zucchini plants. Or you can "sow seeds under and around things that are still growing," she says. Another approach is to grow fall crops in pots: Lettuces and greens adapt very well to containers. Their colors and textures are beautiful and make a nice change from mums in pots on the front porch. Pick leaves for salads all you like -- the plants will just keep growing.

Territorial Seed Company promotes fall vegetable gardening in a special catalog of winter blends, each with three or more varieties of carrots, kale, beets and other crops that perform better in the fall than in spring. Cool-season lettuce varieties such as romaine and oakleaf lettuce will produce a quick crop that even gardeners in frigid-winter areas can harvest before the first frost, Mull says. In the Pacific Northwest, she can harvest many crops through the winter, pinching off leaves from kale and collard plants for months. Mild-climate gardeners everywhere can do the same.

If you've never grown a crop from seed before, fall is a good time to get started, because leafy greens germinate especially well in response to changing temperatures. Radishes, peas, parsnips and carrots are also good bets.

You can also start with transplants of broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, cabbage and other vegetables, says Joan Casanova of Bonnie Plants, which ships transplants to garden shops around the country in the fall. When you buy transplants, they're already about six weeks old and are ready to go in the ground. Starting with transplants also gives you a chance to catch up if you neglect to plant seeds in August. You can still plant seeds later, if you like, but medium-size plants are more resilient than tiny seedlings, and they'll bounce back better from a light frost.

The biggest obstacle to success in a fall garden is not starting one at all. With a couple of packages of seeds, a six-pack of broccoli or kale, and a few minutes in the garden, you're on your way to an easy and delicious fall harvest. Dig in.

SIDEBAR

Under Cover

When you're ready to retire your vegetable garden for the year, it's time to plant a cover crop to see it through the winter. A planting of grains, grass, legumes or other cover crop adds fertility, helps limit weeds and invasive grasses, and builds soil structure. "Anything you can do to protect your soil for the winter is beneficial," says Andrea Mull of Territorial Seed Company. Cover crops look great, too.

SOURCES

Two great sources for seeds for fall crops are:

-- Territorial Seed Company, territorialseed.com

-- Renee's Garden, reneesgarden.com

For transplants:

-- Bonnie Plants, bonnieplants.com

Lightweight fabric row covers are available at garden shops and through mail-order specialists, including Territorial Seed Company.