The Morton Arboretum finished a big building project and paved their parking lot with a kind of brick and arrangement that made the lot water permeable.

There's a sign in the lot explaning it, but no information on the materials or specific construction. I wrote them an email asking about this, because we were also interested in this.

We live right near the Fox River, and runoff from thousands of houses goes straight in there probably. It can't be good. I'll post if and when I hear, or of course you could also write to them at the URL below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Morton Arboretum home page

Some info on their website: www.mortonarb.org/branching_out/branchingout_parking.html

I bet you could find driveway contractors in the yellow pages that would do this type of installation. I guess I'll have to call around here and see if the slope is a problem for this system. I do hope a driveway doesn't require 4 feet of gravel under the bricks, as the parking lot does.

Thanks -- good info. I still haven't heard back from them in email. I'd like them to tell me what contractor they used, since we live close enough we could probably use the same one.

Our driveway is new, so it was our patio we were interested in having done. We have pretty much decided just to leave the patio area all grass, though.

I have noticed in LL Bean catalogs and some magazines that grass seems to be a current trend, strangely enough. My husband doesn't mind moving the yard furniture around when he mows.