Edmonds faces the Sound. Salt air reaches the patios, the wind comes off the water, and the soils change as you move up off the beach — sandier near the shore, heavier as the hills rise toward the ferry and the bowl downtown. The view wants everything low. The wind wants a screen. We design that conflict instead of pretending a glass railing and a lawn solve a bluff.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98020 · 2020 population 42,690
Wind, salt, and the view
Terrace at the house, drainage that does not cut the bank, native edge on the exposure, and a wind break that is not a solid wall of arborvitae destined to brown on the salt side. Lawns stay where they are sheltered.
We keep the plan buildable under ordinary residential permits. A structure on the bluff edge may be a different designer and a different approval, and we will tell you when we are at that line.
The ground in Edmonds
A yard with a view of the water is also a yard in the wind. Screens and plantings have to stand up to salt and to gusts that shred a soft shrub in one winter. Madrone, shore pine, and kinnikinnick already grow on these bluffs for a reason. We use that palette when a client wants the bank to stay put without a weekly watering schedule.
Lower down, salt film builds on pavers and railings, and a pressure-wash is maintenance, not a one-time event. Retaining work on the west-facing slopes is about holding a sandy bank, with drainage behind the wall so the hill does not load up and shove. The older neighborhoods up the hill have more conventional clay and bigger trees, so we do not treat every Edmonds lot like a beach cottage.
How we do the work
Design starts on the lot, not on a template. We look at the doors, the wet spots, the trees worth keeping, and the part of the yard you never use. The drawing, if you want one, comes after that. A plan that ignores January water is a picture.
We design what this crew can build: grade, drainage, patios, walls, planting that belongs in Snohomish County. We do not hand you a tropical planting plan and a hope. You can hire us to design only, or to design and build. The fee is clearer when those are separate.
What we look at first
- How you want to use the yard, in plain language
- The wet spots and the slopes
- Trees and structures that stay
- A budget range, so the plan is not a fantasy
Design without the build
You can take the plan elsewhere. We would rather build it, and the plan will say the details we know matter: base depth, drain outlets, plant sizes. A vague plan is hard for anyone to bid. We try not to write those.
What you leave with
A marked plan you can build from: surfaces, walls, drains, and a plant list that names real plants. Not a watercolor with no scale. If you only need us to lay it out on the ground and build, we do not force a drawing set on you.
Plants
Chosen for this rain, this soil, and the light on that side of the house. Natives where they do the job, ordinary tough shrubs where you want something you can buy again. We do not specify a plant we cannot get or cannot keep alive here.
More from this crew
- Landscape design across Snohomish County
- Landscaping in Edmonds
- Patio installation in Edmonds
- Hardscaping in Edmonds
- Beauty bark in Edmonds
- Landscape design in Mukilteo
- Landscape design in Lynnwood
- Landscape design in Woodway
Sources for the climate and the water
- USDA plant hardiness map for choosing plants that can take a Snohomish County winter.
- EPA WaterSense on watering less once a lawn or a new planting is established.
- EPA Soak Up the Rain on keeping roof and yard water from becoming someone else’s problem.
