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. In a tight city yard, boulders may not fit through the gate. We measure before we specify rock. Block is not a consolation prize if it is the stone we can build correctly.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98201 · 2020 population 110,002
A short rockery where block would also work
Where access allows, a low rockery is a good face for an older house and a small grade change. The base and the drain are the same discipline as a tall wall, just shorter. We do not dump a row of six-inch rock and call it a rockery.
Tie-ins to an old concrete step get thought through. A rock wall butted against a sinking stoop inherits the stoop’s problem.
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 Port Gardner waterfront and the streets near the naval station up into the older neighborhoods 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
A rock wall is dry-stacked or lightly set, with the weight in the stone and the drainage in the voids. It is not a veneer glued to a failing timber wall. We use rock big enough for the height, with a face that leans back into the hill, and smaller rock locked behind so the soil does not pipe through.
Good rock work looks heavier at the bottom. If every stone is the same patio-sized block, it is not a wall, it is a stack. We source local stone and we will tell you when the access cannot take the boulder the job wants.
What we look at first
- Height and whether it is structural or a garden edge
- Machine access for real boulders
- The soil behind: clay that needs a drain, or rock that already sheds
- An existing wall we are tying into
What it will not do
A rock wall will not hold an engineered height it was not built for, and it will not stop a landslide. Past a certain height we involve an engineer or we change the grade so the wall can be shorter. That conversation happens before the stone is ordered.
Dry stack versus mortared
Most of our rock walls are dry, so water can leave and the wall can move a little without cracking a joint. Mortar is for a low, formal edge that is not holding a wet hill. We do not mortar a drainage problem shut.
Tying into old rockery
We can often continue an existing rockery if the old base is still honest. If the old wall is tipping, we take it down and use the good stone again. Matching a lean is how you extend a failure.
More from this crew
- Rock walls across the region
- Retaining walls in Everett
- Gravel installation in Everett
- Landscaping in Everett
- Hardscaping in Everett
- Rock walls in Mukilteo
- Rock walls in Marysville
- Rock walls 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.
