Landscaping in Seattle, WA

Only if you fail any part of a three-part test. A wall is exempt from a construction permit when it is four feet or lower measured from the bottom of the footing to the top, it is not in an Environmentally Critical Area, and it causes no damage to adjoining property. All three must be true. Inside an ECA — which covers steep slopes, landslide-prone ground, liquefaction zones and peat settlement areas — the four-foot exemption does not apply at all, and a wall of any height may need a permit. We check the parcel against the city ECA map before quoting so the permit position is known up front rather than discovered mid-build.

Almost always because it sits on glacial till. Most of Seattle has 12 to 24 inches of topsoil over a dense hardpan layer that water will not pass through at any useful rate. Through the dry months you never notice. From October the rain arrives faster than the soil can move it sideways, the topsoil saturates, and the water has nowhere left to go. Reseeding does nothing about this. The fix is drainage — a French drain routed to daylight, regrading to move water away from the house, or in bad cases both — and it is the reason we look at grade before we look at planting.

The build window here is genuinely compressed compared with most of the country. Hardscape work — walls, patios, driveways, paving — runs best March through September when the ground is workable and base material compacts properly. Drainage, tree work and clearing are all fine in the wet months and are often better then, because you can see exactly where the water goes. The practical advice is to book design and estimating in January and February. By April the good crews in this city are already committed for the season.

Real ranges rather than a single number, because scope drives it. Paver patios run roughly $20 to $50 per square foot installed including base preparation and drainage, with complex layouts above that. Retaining walls run $5 to $45 per square foot depending on material and height — a four-foot by fifty-foot wall with proper drainage and access work typically lands between $8,000 and $24,000. French drains are $10 to $25 per linear foot. Artificial turf is $13 to $20 per square foot, and it genuinely varies by neighbourhood. You get a fixed written price before anything starts, and it does not move once agreed.

All of it. We have dedicated pages for Ballard, Queen Anne, Magnolia, Green Lake, Wedgwood, Madison Park, Laurelhurst, Mount Baker, Seward Park and West Seattle, plus North, Central and South Seattle as districts, because the ground genuinely differs between them — a bluff lot in Magnolia and a flat lot in Wedgwood are not the same job. If your neighbourhood is not listed, it is still almost certainly covered; call and ask.