Seattle
Landscaping & Hardscaping in Ballard, Seattle
Quick answer
Ballard splits in two: till uplands at Loyal Heights and Sunset Hill, and filled former tideland near Salmon Bay that Seattle maps as liquefaction-prone. The alley grid usually lets a machine reach the back yard. We build patios, walls, cedar fencing, sod and irrigation, about forty minutes from Kent.
- From our Kent shop
- about 40 minutes
- ZIP codes served
- 98107, 98117, 98103
- Licensed in WA
- Bonded & insured
There are two Ballards under the pavement. North and west of roughly 65th, through Loyal Heights, Whittier Heights, Sunset Hill and out toward Crown Hill, the ground is upland glacial till with the hardpan you find all over this side of the Sound. South and east, along Salmon Bay and the Ship Canal and through the old industrial strip toward the Locks, a great deal of the ground is fill placed over former tideland and marsh a century ago. Seattle maps that lower corridor as liquefaction-prone. The difference shows up at the shovel and again at the permit counter, and you cannot tell which one you are standing on from the street.
Ballard was its own city until 1907, and the housing still says so. Ballard boxes and Craftsman bungalows built between 1900 and 1930 sit on narrow platted lots of three to five thousand square feet, with a full alley grid behind them. That grid is the single best thing about working in this neighborhood. Two waves of change followed. Townhouses and rowhouses replaced single houses along the arterials through the 2010s, leaving back yards of four hundred square feet floored in compacted construction subgrade. Then Seattle loosened its accessory dwelling rules in 2019 and backyard cottages went up across Ballard faster than anywhere else in the city, which quietly redefined what a Ballard back yard even is. A large share of our work here is the landscape that has to make sense of what is left: a narrow side run, a small paved court between the house and the DADU, a fence that gives two households privacy from each other.
On the upland the dig is familiar. Alderwood soil over till, hardpan around two feet, water sitting on top of it from November through March, cobbles in the way. Down near the flats it changes completely. The water table is close, a two-foot excavation can find water on its own without any rain that week, and the fill is whatever the mill and shipyard era left behind: wood debris, slag, brick, old timber cribbing, and the occasional length of buried rail. Base sections there need geotextile separation and more thought about bearing than a textbook detail provides. Old clay tile drains cross a lot of these yards, installed by people who understood this rain perfectly well, and cutting one accidentally does not announce itself until the following winter shows up as a wet lawn.
Alley access is why a Ballard project can often be built with a machine when the identical project on Capitol Hill cannot. A mini excavator will usually reach the back yard through the alley, and that single fact takes real money out of a patio or a wall because the material and the spoil are not moving by wheelbarrow. It is not automatic. Alleys narrow, several are unpaved and turn to mush in February, bins and parked cars block them, and a newly built cottage may have absorbed the turning room that used to exist. We walk the alley before we quote, not after. Out at Sunset Hill and above Shilshole the wind comes off Puget Sound carrying salt, and gardens on those blocks need a tougher palette than the sheltered streets around Adams and West Woodland.
What people here ask for is usable outdoor space in a small footprint, done properly. A tight paver court with a gas fire bowl. Horizontal cedar fencing, which this neighborhood likes more than any other place we work. A raised bed that screens the alley without making the yard feel smaller. Sod on a two-hundred-square-foot lawn that actually roots, because the subgrade was fixed rather than covered up. Planting runs between two extremes: retained bigleaf maple casting deep shade on the older lots, and no canopy at all on the treeless townhouse parcels. Sword fern, salal, carex and red twig dogwood handle the wet shade. Hebe, lavender, kinnikinnick and dwarf conifers take the wind and sun. Vine maple or a Japanese maple usually ends up as the one specimen a yard this size can afford. Irrigation is drip and inline emitter tubing behind a tested backflow assembly, sized for beds measured in feet. The plan comes out of our own office and the same company sets the block and the pavers, which on a lot this small is the only way the design and the base ever agree.
Ground conditions in Ballard
Ballard has two distinct ground conditions and the boundary between them is not obvious from the street. The northern and western uplands through Loyal Heights, Whittier Heights, Sunset Hill and Crown Hill sit on Vashon glacial till, generally Alderwood series soil with hardpan around two feet down. Water will not infiltrate through that contact, so it perches through the wet months and yards stay saturated from November into March while the same ground bakes dry by August. Cobbles are normal in the dig. The southern and eastern lower ground along Salmon Bay, the Ship Canal and out toward the Locks is largely artificial fill placed over former tideland and estuary during the mill and shipyard era, and the City of Seattle maps that corridor as liquefaction-prone. Down there the water table is shallow, an open excavation can take on water on its own, and the fill contains wood debris, slag, brick, timber cribbing and other legacy material of unpredictable compaction, which makes bearing capacity something to verify rather than assume. Older clay tile field drains cross many of these yards. On post-2010 townhouse and rowhouse parcels, and on lots where a backyard cottage was added after Seattle relaxed its ADU rules in 2019, the native profile is usually gone entirely and what remains is a few hundred square feet of compacted construction subgrade with no topsoil left on it. Exposed blocks at Sunset Hill and above Shilshole take salt-carrying wind off Puget Sound.
Permits
Ballard permits through the City of Seattle, with SDCI reviewing construction and SDOT controlling the right of way, including the alleys that most projects here depend on. Retaining walls over 4 feet measured from the bottom of the footing to the top of the wall require a permit with stamped structural engineering, and a wall of any height supporting a surcharge from a slope, a parking pad or an adjacent foundation is treated the same way. The locally specific issue is the liquefaction-prone mapping along the Salmon Bay and Ship Canal corridor, which is part of Seattle Environmentally Critical Areas: on those parcels geotechnical input can be required for structures that would be routine on the upland, and bearing and settlement questions get real scrutiny. Seattle stormwater rules currently capture projects adding or replacing roughly 750 square feet or more of hard surface, and on a small Ballard lot a patio, a side walk and an alley apron can reach that together. Fences below the code height threshold are generally exempt from a building permit, but zoning limits height more tightly within the front setback than at the rear, and a fence on a corner lot has sight-triangle rules of its own. Adding or altering a backyard cottage brings lot coverage, setback and hard-surface limits into play that directly constrain how much yard can be paved. Removal of most sizeable trees on developed lots requires a permit under the 2023 tree ordinance. The Ballard Avenue Landmark District applies to the historic commercial core, and shoreline rules apply near Shilshole and Salmon Bay. Thresholds and mapping change, so we confirm the current numbers with the city at permit time.
Neighborhoods we work in
- Old Ballard
- Sunset Hill
- Loyal Heights
- Whittier Heights
- West Woodland
- Adams
- Crown Hill
Services we offer in Ballard
Ballard: common questions
Can you get a machine into my back yard through the alley?
Usually, and it matters to the price. A mini excavator that can reach the back yard through the alley removes most of the hand labor from a patio or wall, which is why Ballard projects often cost less than the same build on a Capitol Hill lot. We do not assume it though. Some alleys are unpaved and soften badly in winter, some are narrow enough that a trailer cannot turn, bins and parked cars block others, and a recently built cottage may have taken the maneuvering room. We walk the alley on the first visit and tell you which way the job is going to be built.
I am adding a backyard cottage. When should the landscaping get designed?
Before the cottage is finished, ideally before the site plan is locked. Ballard has more DADUs than anywhere else we work, and the yard left over afterward is usually a few hundred square feet of compacted construction subgrade with no topsoil, no drainage plan and two households sharing sightlines. Deciding the paved court, the privacy fence line, the drainage route and the utility sleeves while the ground is already open is far cheaper than trenching through a finished yard later. Lot coverage and hard-surface limits also apply to the cottage and the paving together, so the two decisions are linked whether or not they get made together.
My lot is in the liquefaction-prone area near Salmon Bay. Does that affect a patio?
A flat at-grade patio, rarely. A wall or anything carrying load, often yes. That corridor is filled former tideland, so the fill can be loose, wood-laden and unevenly compacted, and Seattle maps it as an Environmentally Critical Area for liquefaction. On those parcels a structure that would be routine up in Loyal Heights may need geotechnical input, and settlement is a genuine risk rather than a formality. What we do differently down there is verify bearing, use geotextile separation in the base section, build in thinner lifts and design for the shallow water table rather than pretending it is upland till.
Why does my yard stay wet all winter?
It depends which Ballard you are in. Up on the till at Loyal Heights or Sunset Hill it is hardpan: about two feet of soil over dense glacial till that water cannot pass through, so rain perches and stalls. Down toward the flats it is a shallow water table in filled ground, and sometimes it is a clay tile drain from the 1920s that finally collapsed or got cut during a remodel. Those three causes need three different fixes, so we probe the profile and check for existing drain lines before proposing anything, rather than defaulting to a French drain that may solve nothing.
Do I need a permit for a new fence in Ballard?
Usually not a building permit, provided it stays under the code height threshold, but zoning still governs. Seattle limits fence height more tightly inside the front setback than in the side and rear yards, corner lots have sight-triangle requirements at the driveway and intersection, and anything placed in the alley or planting strip is right-of-way work that belongs to SDOT rather than SDCI. Ballard property lines on these narrow old plats are also frequently not where people assume, so we confirm the line before setting posts. We verify the current height rules with the city rather than quoting a number that may have changed.