Woodway is large, wooded lots and a town of 1,384 people. The canopy is the landscape. Lawns live in the gaps between old trees, the soil stays shaded and cool, and privacy is the reason people bought the property. A wall dug through a major root plate can kill the tree that is the reason you like the lot. We move the line or we shrink the wall.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98020 · 2020 population 1,384
Walls under trees, without cutting the bank apart
Shade lots want a low stone or block edge to hold a bed, not a cut into the hill under the firs. We hand-dig when the machine would skin roots. Drainage still goes in. Leaf litter will clog a weep that sits at the surface, so the outlet is something we can find again.
Timber walls in permanent shade rot faster. We say that and we steer you to block or rock if the wall is meant to last.
The ground in Woodway
We are not opening these lots to the street. Pruning is about structure, light, and keeping limbs off the house, done so the screen of trees stays. Under that canopy the lawn is the hard part: moss, thin grass, and roots at the surface. Aeration helps the pockets that get some sun. The deep shade wants a different floor — bark, ferns, and the understory that is already trying to grow — not another season of seed that germinates and dies.
Hardscape, when it belongs, is a terrace or a quiet patio in a clearing, built for wet shade so it does not turn green and slick. Bark on the beds keeps the mud down and the edges readable from the house. The work should look like it was always in the trees, because it is.
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.
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.
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.
More from this crew
- Retaining walls across Snohomish County
- Rock walls in Woodway
- French drain installation in Woodway
- Hardscaping in Woodway
- Patio installation in Woodway
- Retaining walls in Edmonds
- Retaining walls in Mukilteo
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.
