Everett is the big city in the county, and the ground changes block to block: waterfront fill, older neighborhoods with tired topsoil, and tighter lots where the roof and the driveway shed more water than the yard can swallow. Boeing and the working waterfront are the backdrop. The yards are ordinary residential lots with city drainage problems. City lots do not have leftover space. The design has to hold the cans, the gate, the dryer vent, and a place to sit, and still get rid of the roof water.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98201 · 2020 population 110,002
A small yard with a job for every foot
We measure. The plan is usually hardscape, one tree that fits, and beds you can weed from the path. Storage is designed, not hoped for behind a shrub. Drainage is drawn, because paving the whole yard without it is a flooded slider.
Style follows the house. A busy paver pattern in a twenty-by-thirty yard makes it feel smaller. We keep the materials few.
The ground in Everett
On a typical Everett lot the soil has been graded, driven on, and patched for years. It sheds or it puddles, and it rarely does the quiet middle thing a new lawn needs. Downspouts often end in a splash block ten inches from the foundation. That is the puddle by the basement window.
We work from the waterfront streets up into the neighborhoods near the naval station and out toward the valley. Access is the constraint people forget: a machine that fits a Mill Creek cul-de-sac may not fit a fenced backyard off Broadway. Permeable pavers and a short French drain solve more Everett problems than a bigger patio. Lawns here are for people who want the grass cut and the moss knocked back, not a show lawn. We schedule mowing and aeration around that.
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
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.
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.
Budget
Tell us the range. We design inside it, or we design a first phase that stands alone. A plan that costs four times what you will spend is a hobby. Phasing is drainage and structure first, plants after.
More from this crew
- Landscape design across Snohomish County
- Landscaping in Everett
- Patio installation in Everett
- Hardscaping in Everett
- Beauty bark in Everett
- Landscape design in Mukilteo
- Landscape design in Marysville
- Landscape design in Lake Stevens
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.
