Service area

Landscaping in North Seattle

North Seattle is the flat part of a hilly city, and that changes what a garden needs. Where Queen Anne and Mount Baker jobs start with holding a slope, a Wedgwood or Maple Leaf job starts with a large level rectangle and the question of what it should actually do. The catch is that flat ground on glacial till drains worse than sloped ground, not better — water has nowhere to run, so it sits. Most of the north-end work we do begins by fixing that, then builds the patio, planting and lighting on top of ground that will stay where we put it.

Get a free North Seattle estimate (425) 533-9734

From our Capitol Hill base: 15–25 minutes from Capitol Hill
Typical lot: 5,000–7,200 sq ft lots, with genuinely usable back gardens — the largest average of any Seattle district.
Terrain: Gentler than the rest of Seattle. Broad flat platforms around Green Lake, Wedgwood and Maple Leaf, with real grade at the ravine edges and toward the Sound.

What we plan around here

The ground decides the job.

North Seattle is where the flat lots are, which changes what the work is. Instead of the terracing and wall-building that dominates the south and west of the city, jobs here are about making a large flat garden do something — a patio that gets used, planting that reads year-round, and drainage that stops a level lawn from becoming a level pond. Flat ground drains worse than sloped ground, not better, and on till that matters.

Soil: Glacial till through most of the district, with sandier outwash pockets toward Ballard and Crown Hill that drain noticeably better.
Terrain: Gentler than the rest of Seattle. Broad flat platforms around Green Lake, Wedgwood and Maple Leaf, with real grade at the ravine edges and toward the Sound.
Water: Seattle Public Utilities. Same SPU supply as the rest of the city. Established north-end gardens tend to have older irrigation that over-waters lawn and under-waters beds; rezoning usually saves more water than any restriction would.
Lot sizes: 5,000–7,200 sq ft lots, with genuinely usable back gardens — the largest average of any Seattle district.
HOAs & covenants: Effectively none. Standard single-family zoning throughout, so exterior work is a permit question rather than a board question.

What we build in North Seattle

Every service, on ground we know.

Also available here

Serving North Seattle and surrounding neighbourhoods

Where this is, and what it tells you about the ground.

Green Lake Park
The 2.8-mile loop that half of north Seattle walks, and the reason lots nearby carry a premium.
Carkeek Park
A ravine park dropping to the Sound — a working illustration of how north-end bluff drainage behaves.
Woodland Park Zoo
The green anchor between Phinney Ridge and Green Lake.

Neighbourhoods covered

Ballard · Fremont · Wallingford · Green Lake · Phinney Ridge · Greenwood · Crown Hill · Northgate · Maple Leaf · Lake City · Wedgwood · View Ridge · Ravenna · University District · Laurelhurst · Sand Point

ZIP codes

98103 · 98105 · 98107 · 98115 · 98117 · 98125 · 98133

Recent work

Projects from North Seattle.

Flagstone stepping path with a river rock edge and fresh bark mulch beds

Walkways

Flagstone path and river-rock edge

A side yard nobody used, turned into a proper route to the back garden.

Paver Patio

Circular fire-pit patio with a curved seat wall

A circle is the hardest shape to lay well — every course has to be cut to the radius. Capped seat wall around the back, contrasting inner ring under the fire bowl, path lights set into the bed edge.

Stone-faced raised planting beds wrapping the corner of a cream stucco house, freshly planted with red flowers

Stonework

Raised beds wrapping the house

Stone-faced beds following the footing line, planted the day they were finished. Raising the soil away from the wall is what keeps water off the render.

Covered outdoor pavilion with a gabled roof, dark stained beams and white posts over a paver terrace, with a stone-faced outdoor kitchen bar, dining table and hot tub beneath it

Outdoor Living

Covered pavilion with an outdoor kitchen

A gabled pavilion on white posts with stained beams overhead, a stone-faced bar with stools along the house wall, and a paver terrace running out under all of it. Built as one structure rather than a roof added over an existing patio, which is why the posts land on the paving instead of interrupting it.

Large-format grey slab patio against a blue-grey clapboard house, with a corner sofa, a square gas fire table and a rattan chair on it

Paver Patio

Slab terrace with a fire table

Large-format grey slabs laid tight against the house, sized for a corner sofa and a fire table with room to walk behind both. The joint lines run parallel to the wall rather than square to the garden, so the terrace reads as part of the building.

Local questions

What people in North Seattle ask us.

Something specific to your street? Call (425) 533-9734 — we would rather look at it than guess.

Why does a flat North Seattle lawn hold water when the sloped ones nearby do not?

Because slope gives water somewhere to go and flat ground does not. Under most of north Seattle is glacial till, a compacted layer that water moves through very slowly. On a sloped lot the water at least runs across the surface and away. On a flat Wedgwood or Maple Leaf lot it saturates the topsoil and stays there until it evaporates, which between October and March it largely does not. The fix is usually a French drain routed to a low point or the street, combined with a slight regrade so the ground itself moves water away from the house.

Do the sandier soils near Ballard and Crown Hill drain better?

Yes, noticeably. The north-west corner of the district has outwash pockets — sandier, looser material left by the same glacial retreat — and lots there often drain well enough that a full drainage system is unnecessary. It is not universal and it does not follow neighbourhood boundaries neatly, so we test rather than assume. Where the soil does drain, the money that would have gone into drainage generally goes further into the visible parts of the project.

What is worth doing with a large flat back garden?

The mistake we see most is treating the whole thing as lawn and then never using it. A 40-by-40 flat garden supports genuine zoning: a paved area sized for a table and chairs that gets used from March, a lawn or turf area for play that is smaller than people expect, and planting deep enough to give the boundary some structure. Splitting a large flat space into two or three defined areas almost always makes it feel bigger and get used more, which is the opposite of most people's instinct.

Are the mature trees on north Seattle lots a problem for hardscape?

They are a constraint worth designing around rather than a problem. Established north-end streets carry big maples, cedars and Douglas firs whose roots run far wider than the canopy suggests. Excavating a patio base through a major root plate can kill a tree slowly enough that nobody connects the two events. Where a tree matters we adjust the layout, use a shallower base build-up, or move the hard surface — and where a tree is already failing, removal before the hardscape goes in is far cheaper than removal afterwards.

Circular stone fire pit and curved seat wall on a paver patio overlooking a valley view

Get a fixed price for your North Seattle project.

We come out, walk the property, look at the grade and the drainage, and put a written price together. No deposit, and it does not change once agreed.

Book a free site visit Call (425) 533-9734

Nearby

Areas we cover next to North Seattle.

Paver apron and planted strip across the front of a house on an older residential street

All 25 service areas →

Free estimate

Book a visit in North Seattle.

15–25 minutes from Capitol Hill from our Capitol Hill base. Three minutes on the form and we will come out and look at it properly.

Or call (425) 533-9734