Landscaping & Hardscaping in Bellevue, WA

Bellevue isn't one landform. It's a run of north-south ridges the Vashon ice sheet left behind, with soft basins trapped in the low ground between them. Ridge work and basin work are two different jobs. That difference is most of what we do here. Somerset climbs the north face of Cougar Mountain toward a thousand feet. Lakemont sits on the mountain itself. Two miles away, Mercer Slough is a peat wetland deep enough that the highway crossing it counts as real engineering. Kelsey Creek drains the middle. Any crew pricing every Bellevue address off one template is guessing at the part that matters.

The housing follows those same lines. Northwest Bellevue and Enatai filled in on the lake side during the 1940s and 50s. Those lots have mature canopy, tight side yards, and original drainage that predates any code worth the name. Lake Hills was one of the largest postwar subdivisions in the state. Thousands of ramblers went down through the 1950s and 60s, on ground that used to be drained peat farmland around Larsen and Phantom lakes. Somerset and Woodridge are view lots cut into a hillside in the 1960s and 70s. Lakemont and the Cougar Mountain plats went in during the 1990s. That puts their builder-installed block walls right at the age when the drainage behind them quits.

The requests are steadier than the ground is. A level terrace big enough for a table and eight chairs, on a lot that falls twelve feet from the slider to the fence. Privacy from the three-story house that replaced the rambler next door. An entry sequence and a walkway that keep pace with an interior remodel. Lighting and a gas fire bowl so the space still works in October. On the Eastside, that's when people actually want to be outside. On the lake side of I-405 we do a fair amount of view management too. Nobody there is asking for more planting. They want the right plant at a height that will never grow into the water view.

What the crew hits depends on which side of a ridge line the house sits on. Up on Somerset, Woodridge and Bridle Trails it's Alderwood till with cemented hardpan a foot or two down. The drainage assembly behind a wall matters more than the block face does. Nearly every excavation up there finds the seep line, where winter water rides sideways across the top of the pan. Down in the Lake Hills and Kelsey Creek basins it's peat and soft organic silt. That won't carry a patio base. You over-excavate it, separate the base with fabric, and build a deeper section. Now and then we turn up old farm drain tile from the blueberry days. On the Cougar Mountain flank there are mapped coal mine hazard areas left from the Newcastle-era workings. We check the parcel map before anyone loads an excavator. You do not want to find that halfway through a dig.

Design gets drawn in our own office and our own crew sets the block. That counts for more in Bellevue than in most places. The city looks hard at grading, land disturbance and retained trees. A plan that ignores the root zone of the significant firs on a lot won't survive review. It won't survive the trees either. Planting follows the exposure. Rhododendron and evergreen huckleberry under retained conifers. Hydrangea and Japanese maple on a shaded entry. Hebe and lavender across a hot Somerset south face. And carex and red twig dogwood in the low corner almost every Lake Hills lot turns out to have.