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Mountlake Terrace is mid-century houses on city lots, with newer buildings near the transit line. The slopes are gentle, the soils are compacted, and the yards were not designed for the amount of roof water a remodels-worth of downspouts can dump. City cleanups are fences full of blackberry, a side yard of junk, and beds that became soil. The square footage is small and the hauling is still real.
Snohomish County · ZIP 98043 · 2020 population 21,272
A small yard that got away
We cut, we load, we sweep. The gate width decides the method. If everything has to be carried out in cans, the price reflects the time. We restore a edge so the next mow is possible.
Neighbors are close. We do not block the street with a trailer longer than we need to, and we do not blow the mess onto the next walk.
The ground in Mountlake Terrace
Lots are modest. A patio, a small lawn, a side yard that has become a moss strip, and a fence that is older than the owners. That is the usual visit. The soil has been walked on for sixty years. Aeration and dethatching change the lawn more than a bag of seed thrown on top.
Where the lot tips, it tips a little, and a low wall or a re-graded swale is enough. We are not cutting roads into a mountain. Pavers get people off the mud by the back door, and a pressure wash takes the black film off a walk that has not seen sun all winter. Plantings should stay in scale with the house. A hedgerow that needs a lift every year is the wrong tree for a forty-foot lot.
How we do the work
A cleanup is debris gone, beds redefined, and the hazards cut. We haul. A pile at the curb that sits for a month is not a finish. Brush, rotten wood, the fallen fence panel, the blackberries that took the side yard: that is the work.
We do not “clean” a yard by blowing leaves into the beds and covering them with a thin coat of bark. If bark is part of the visit, the bed is weeded first. If it is not in the bid, we do not fake it.
The walk-through is the scope. A bigger pile, a surprise blackberry thicket, or a tree that needs a climber changes the day, and we say that before we start rather than after the trailer is full.
What we look at first
- What is actually being hauled
- Blackberries, downed limbs, and junk versus a normal leaf drop
- Access for a trailer
- Whether you want it bare and ready, or just safe and tidy
Leaves
Off the lawn, off the beds you care about, off the walks. Into the trailer. A wooded corner can keep its duff. Blowing every leaf out of a natural area is busywork, and we will not pretend it is horticulture.
Hauling
Included when we said it was included. Green waste, rotten fence boards, the bagged pile you already made. We do not take household trash, paint, or anything we cannot legally dump as yard waste. Ask before you add a mystery pile.
Blackberries
Cut to the ground and hauled, with the understanding they return from the roots. A cleanup is not eradication. A follow-up, or a dig-out if the patch is small, is how you actually get rid of them. We will say which you bought.
More from this crew
- Yard cleanup across Snohomish County
- Tree and shrub pruning in Mountlake Terrace
- Beauty bark in Mountlake Terrace
- Landscaping in Mountlake Terrace
- Pressure washing in Mountlake Terrace
- Yard cleanup in Lynnwood
- Yard cleanup in Edmonds
- Yard cleanup in Brier
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.
