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. A wall that traps water in a sandy hillside will shove, and a wall that dumps water over a bluff will cut a gully. Drainage is the wall.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98020 · 2020 population 42,690
Hold the sandy bank, do not load the bluff
We build for the soil that is there: sandier near the shore, heavier uphill. The face can be block or rock. The back is drain rock and a pipe with an outlet that does not erode the slope below. We do not cut the toe out of a bluff to gain a patio without knowing what that bluff is doing.
Salt and wind are hard on timber. We do not use wood as the structural choice on an exposed marine lot.
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
A retaining wall is a structure. The part you see is the block, the boulder, or the timber. The part that keeps it standing is the base, the batter or the geogrid, and the drain rock behind it. We do not stack block on the sod and call it a wall.
Height decides everything. A low garden wall and a wall holding a drive are not the same detail, the same permit, or the same price. We measure the retained dirt, not the face you wish it were.
What we look at first
- Retained height, at the tallest point
- What is above the wall: a lawn, a drive, a house
- Water coming down the slope
- Access for block or for boulders
The base
Compacted rock, buried enough that the first course is not sitting in the organic layer. A wall is not a stack. If the base is soft, we dig out and replace it. There is no fabric or foam that fixes a bad base.
Block, rock, or timber
Engineered block is predictable and what we use when the height or the permit wants an engineered system. Boulders fit the foothills and the older yards. Timber is a short-life choice in the wet, and we will say how many years you are buying.
Drainage is part of the wall
Rock behind the face, a pipe at the heel, and an outlet you can see. Weep holes alone, stuffed with the native clay, are not a drain. This is the step that gets skipped on walls that lean.
More from this crew
- Retaining walls across Snohomish County
- Rock walls in Edmonds
- French drain installation in Edmonds
- Hardscaping in Edmonds
- Patio installation in Edmonds
- Retaining walls in Mukilteo
- Retaining walls in Lynnwood
- Retaining walls 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.
