Mukilteo drops toward the ferry and the Sound. Salt reaches the lower streets, and the hills above the terminal shed water down through yards that were cut into the slope. A flat inland detail does not survive on these lots. 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 98275 · 2020 population 21,246
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 Mukilteo
Hillside runoff is the job. A patio with a view is also a patio that can send water at the house if the base and the pitch are wrong. We build the drain before the pavers, and we hold the bank with a wall that has rock or drain tile behind it, not a decorative stack sitting on the sod.
Salt-tolerant natives belong on the exposed edges. Pressure washing is how you get the marine film off a walk and a railing; it comes back, so we treat it as upkeep. Lawns on the upper, slightly flatter streets behave more like the rest of the county — clay, moss, shade from big trees — and we maintain them that way. The waterfront lots are a different trade: erosion, wind, and a view you do not want to block with a hedge.
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
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.
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.
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 Mukilteo
- Patio installation in Mukilteo
- Hardscaping in Mukilteo
- Beauty bark in Mukilteo
- Landscape design in Everett
- Landscape design in Edmonds
- Landscape design in Mill Creek
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.
