Landscape Design & Installation in Redmond, WA

With more definition than most owners initially want. The default on a big lot is a very large lawn with a border, and it produces a garden that is impressive from the window and used only near the house. What works is dividing it: a paved area sized properly for how you entertain, a lawn or turf area with a defined shape and purpose, planting deep enough to give the boundary presence, and a route that connects them rather than an edge that circles them. On a lot this size there is room for somewhere to walk to, which most gardens cannot offer.

Generally the hard surface materials and colours, fencing, front-of-house planting and any structure — which on a full design means most of the scheme. Redmond Ridge and several of the newer developments operate genuine architectural standards. Submissions are rarely refused where the specification is reasonable, but they take time, and the worst version is having materials on order for a spring start that the board has not yet approved. We produce the drawings and specifications in a submission-ready form and plan the build behind approval rather than around it.

Yes, and on a lot this size it is common — with the rule that everything buried goes in during the first phase. Drainage, irrigation sleeves under any future hard surface, and lighting conduit cost very little while the ground is open and a machine is on site, and a great deal once there is a finished patio and established planting above them. After that the order is structure, then surfaces, then planting and lighting. We design the whole property up front so the phases join properly rather than colliding.

Plants that tolerate ground staying wet for months, which is a genuinely different palette from the upland. The Sammamish Valley floor is alluvial with a water table close to the surface, so anything needing sharp drainage will struggle regardless of how well it is planted — and the usual response of adding topsoil to raise a bed only works if the water underneath has somewhere to go. The productive approach is planting for the conditions rather than against them, combined with drainage where a specific area genuinely needs to be drier. Up on Education Hill none of this applies.