Dirty Concrete "patio" in Garden

Hi,

I have a small garden, at the back of a 3 bed semi-d and there is a section where the patio doors open that is a concrete square about 3m*3m that is inclosed on 3 sides by my kitchen on 2 sides and the dividing wall with neighbour on the other side. The 4th side leads on to the grass lawn.

Basically my problem is that this patch of concrete is a mess, the lawn slopes down towards the house and the concrete slopes towards the lawn, so the water never really leaves the concrete and it has turned a really dirty, dark grey/black colour.

This area also never gets any sunlight due to facing north.

Does anybody have any ideas on what I could do with this patch of concrete? Just cover it up withsomething else, decking or something?

Thanks,
Pat

You can cover the concrete with decking, you'll need stuff with groves so it doesn't become to slippy especially as it sounds shady. You can also hire a yoke to dig it up, shoul;dn't take long. Then you can put down some nice paving, because it's such a small area it shouldn't cost you much to do it.

You could put a treated timber margin around the area, line with Terram and fill with 3-4" of pea gravel.

I come across this situation a lot, take a look at my sitehttp://www.topstone.ie,for www.topstone.ie for an alternate solution to ripping the concrete up. With the lawn and patio both falling into each other the solution there is to install channel drain across the front of the patio,draining off into the nearest shore.
kiwi

Why dont you dig a little trench with your spade about 150mm wide and 300mm deep along the end of your cement and fill it with round stone the same as they do along the side of the motorways

usually the option is to pave over it and extend outwards so as to alter the existing shape. Other than this removal is the best option anmd put it to plants.