Hi, new to this site and building my first patio. Trying to find out what material is best to put down for the base of my patio. I've already excavated and compacted the soil at the bottom the best i could. now its time to pull the trigger and buy something and i'm not sure what will be the best.

also, i'm wondering if its absolutely necessary to rent a power tamper of if it would be ok to just do the back breaking work with a hand tamper. From what i've read, it will take two days with a power tamper to do what i need, and at $70 a day, that takes a good chunk out of the savings of doing all the work myself. I know a lot of people will just say to rent it, but i'm trying to save as much money as possible and want to make sure its absolutely necessary since i'm willing (and able) to manually do the work myself.