Lynnwood is built tight: retail around Alderwood, houses on smaller lots, and soils that were compacted when the neighborhood went in. Rain runs off roofs, walks, and the mall-side pavement faster than the yard can take it. 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 98036 · 2020 population 38,141
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 Lynnwood
Residential yards here are often a rectangle of tired turf, a fence, and a patio slab that has settled toward the house. The soil underneath is dense. Water sits, moss follows, and a new plant put into that ground without loosening it just stalls.
We aerate and dethatch before we promise a greener lawn, and we look at the downspouts before we sell a flower bed. Pavers and gravel show up on the small patios and the side yards where people actually walk. There is also commercial work along the retail streets — pruning, pressure washing, and beds that have to look kept without a full-time gardener. Native, lower-water plantings make more sense than a hedge that needs shearing every three weeks next to a busy road.
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
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.
The base course
The biggest stones, buried, on compacted rock or competent ground. If the first course is the one you can see sitting on the grass, the wall is already failing. You should see the second course at grade, not the bottom of the first.
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.
More from this crew
- Rock walls across Snohomish County
- Retaining walls in Lynnwood
- Gravel installation in Lynnwood
- Landscaping in Lynnwood
- Hardscaping in Lynnwood
- Rock walls in Edmonds
- Rock walls in Brier
- Rock walls in Mountlake Terrace
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.
