South King County
Landscaping & Hardscaping in Auburn, WA
Quick answer
Auburn splits between a wet river valley and two steep plateaus, and each needs a different build. On the flats we design around a shallow winter water table and soft alluvial ground. On Lea Hill and Lakeland Hills we are terracing slopes with engineered block. The drive from our Kent shop is about twenty minutes.
- From our Kent shop
- about 20 minutes
- ZIP codes served
- 98001, 98002, 98092
- Licensed in WA
- Bonded & insured
Auburn sits where the White River meets the Green. That confluence shaped everything a shovel finds here. About five and a half thousand years ago the Osceola Mudflow came off Mount Rainier. It filled the White River valley and spread out across the flats Auburn sits on now. Under the topsoil and river silt there's a stiff gray mudflow deposit. It surprises crews who've only worked the Eastside. Once you're down into it, it bears weight fine. The trouble is the layers above it. They hold water like a sponge.
The city grew out and up in two different eras. Downtown, Terminal Park and the streets around the BNSF yard have the oldest houses. Early 1900s through the 1940s, small platted lots, mature maples, shallow utilities running everywhere. Lea Hill and West Hill came into the city in the 2008 annexations. That brought in a big stock of 1980s and 1990s subdivisions, plus the newer plats around Green River College. South of the river, Lakeland Hills was master-planned on the plateau in the late 80s and kept building for thirty years. That's why so much of it sits on graded pads with engineered fill and short, steep side yards.
What people call us about depends on which Auburn they live in. Down on the valley floor it's standing water. The lawn squelches from November to March. Raised beds rot out. The patio somebody poured in 2005 has settled unevenly, because the soil under it was never stable. We fix that with grade and a real drainage plan. Often we'll set the patio a little above the surrounding lawn, on a deeper base with separation fabric. For planting we stick to things that take wet feet. Red twig dogwood, carex, salal, vine maple. And we set them on small mounds, not down in a sump.
Up on the hills it's the opposite problem. Lea Hill and Lakeland Hills lots often fall six to twelve feet from the house to the back fence. The usable yard is a strip. So the work is terracing. An engineered segmental block wall with geogrid tied back into the slope. Block or slab steps down to the lower terrace. A patio cut into the new bench. Access is the real variable. A lot of those plats have narrow streets and tight side-yard gates. Whether a machine fits will move your schedule and your price more than the block you pick.
From our Kent shop, Auburn is about twenty minutes down 132nd or out SR 18. That's close. If we need a second pallet of block or another load of drain rock, it's a short run, not a lost day.
Ground conditions in Auburn
The Auburn valley floor is deep alluvium sitting on Osceola Mudflow deposits. The silt loams on top drain poorly. The seasonal water table can sit within a few feet of grade through the wet months. State hazard mapping shows the valley as highly susceptible to liquefaction. That's why walls and structures down there get more attention to bearing and drainage than their height alone would suggest. Lea Hill and West Hill are Vashon glacial till, generally Alderwood series. You get the familiar hardpan layer and perched winter water. Lakeland Hills is gravelly outwash on a steeper plateau. It drains better, but it hands you real grade, plus a lot of engineered fill left from the original mass grading. Anywhere in the city, if the lot was platted after 1985, probe it for imported fill before anybody designs a wall on top of it.
Permits
Permits for the whole city go through City of Auburn Community Development on East Main Street. That includes the Lakeland Hills area that falls on the Pierce County side of the city line. Any retaining wall over 4 feet, measured from the bottom of the footing to the top, needs a building permit and stamped engineering. A shorter wall can get pulled in too if there's a surcharge above it. Auburn also keeps Groundwater Protection Zones around its municipal water sources. Work inside one of those can carry extra conditions on excavation, fill material and what you're allowed to infiltrate. So where the imported soil comes from matters more here than in most South King County cities. Grading volume thresholds, floodplain mapping along the Green and White rivers, and stream and wetland buffers each add their own review. Fence heights follow the zoning code, with the usual sight-distance limits at corners and driveways. Rules get amended, so we verify scope with Auburn at permit time.
Neighborhoods we work in
- Lea Hill
- Lakeland Hills
- Terminal Park
- West Hill
- Forest Villa
- North Auburn
- Kersey Way
Services we offer in Auburn
Most requested in Auburn
Auburn: common questions
My Lakeland Hills address is in Pierce County. Who issues the permit?
The City of Auburn does. Auburn spans the county line. If the parcel is inside city limits, the building and grading permits come from Auburn, no matter which county records the deed. What can change on that side is which utility district serves water, sewer and stormwater. That affects your irrigation connection and your backflow testing. We confirm both before we start.
Can you build a retaining wall on the Auburn valley floor?
Yes, if the design respects the ground. Valley soils are soft and saturated for much of the year. The area is mapped for liquefaction. So bearing and drainage get more scrutiny than the same wall would on a hill. In practice that means a wider, deeper leveling pad. A full drain rock zone with a perforated line that actually daylights. And engineering earlier in the height range than you'd need on Lea Hill.
Why does water sit on my lawn all winter in the flats?
The water table is close to the surface and the silt above it drains slowly. A French drain that moves water twenty feet sideways into equally saturated ground does nothing. You need a real outlet. That means a graded catch basin network and a solid tightline running to a legal discharge point. Then we raise the finish grade on the areas you actually use.
Do you work on Lea Hill lots with no back-yard access?
Often, yes. Plenty of Lea Hill plats have 36-inch gates and no side-yard room for a machine. That pushes the job toward hand work, buggies and segmental block instead of boulders. It's slower and it changes the number. We'll tell you that at the walkthrough, not on day one.
How far is Auburn from your shop?
About twenty minutes from Kent East Hill. Either down 132nd Avenue SE or out SR 18, depending on which part of the city you're in. Auburn is inside our core service area. Material runs and warranty callbacks are easy from here.