Services
Landscaping in Kent & Greater Seattle
Quick answer
Blue Landscaping Services handles fencing, scheduled lawn maintenance, planting design and sod installation throughout South King County. Planting plans use USDA zone 8b material that survives wet winters and dry Augusts here, and lawn installs start with grading and soil amendment rather than sod laid over compacted subgrade.
Most failed planting in this region fails for the same reason: something was chosen for how it looked at the nursery rather than for whether it tolerates a winter with its roots in saturated soil. Zone 8b is generous on paper — the winters are mild — but the combination of heavy clay, months of rain, and then a genuinely dry August is a narrower window than the hardiness map suggests.
We plant what survives that. Sword fern, salal, evergreen huckleberry, vine maple, hydrangea, hebe, carex, red twig dogwood, rhododendron and the dwarf conifers do well here with very little intervention once established. That is not a limitation; it is what a yard looks like when it still looks good in year five without constant replacement.
The same thinking applies to lawns. Sod rolled over compacted construction subgrade will look excellent for a month and then thin out, because the roots cannot get anywhere. Grading, decompaction and a real amended topsoil layer are what determine whether a lawn establishes, and they are what we do before any sod arrives.
Everything we build under landscaping
Fencing
Fence installation covers layout, post setting, framing and gates. In South King County, a 6 ft cedar privacy fence typically runs $42 to $70 per linear foot installed, and horizontal cedar with steel posts runs higher
Details & costLawn Maintenance
Lawn maintenance is scheduled mowing, edging, blowing, bed weeding and seasonal pruning on a set route. Around Kent and South King County, weekly visits on a typical suburban lot run $60 to $95 each, and most lawns here need cutting from March through November plus occasional winter mows during mild stretches.
Details & costPlanting & Design
Planting design is a drawn plan and installed plant palette matched to Zone 8b conditions: wet winters, dry Augusts and till subsoil. We design in house, then prep beds, plant and mulch
Details & costSod Installation
Sod installation replaces a lawn with mature turf instead of seed: old turf comes out, the subgrade gets repaired, four to six inches of amended topsoil goes down, and the sod is laid within a day of harvest. Installed cost across Puget Sound typically runs $2.20 to $4.00 per square foot over prepared soil.
Details & cost
Landscaping: common questions
What plants actually survive in the Puget Sound region?
Sword fern, salal, evergreen huckleberry, kinnikinnick, vine maple, Japanese maple, hydrangea, hebe, carex, red twig dogwood, rhododendron, lavender and the dwarf conifers all handle our wet winters and dry late summers well. Anything that objects to sitting in damp soil from November through April is a poor bet regardless of its hardiness rating.
When is the best time to install sod in Western Washington?
Spring and early fall. Both give warm enough soil to root and enough natural moisture to establish without heroic watering. Mid-summer installs work but need daily irrigation for the first two to three weeks. Sod laid in the depth of winter roots slowly and is vulnerable to standing water.
Do you offer ongoing lawn maintenance?
Yes — scheduled mowing, edging, pruning, bed maintenance and seasonal cleanups on a recurring visit schedule. Most residential properties are a weekly or biweekly visit through the growing season, dropping to monthly over winter.
What kind of fencing do you install?
Cedar privacy fence, horizontal cedar, black aluminum and split rail. Cedar is the regional default because it handles the moisture, and how long it lasts comes down mostly to whether the posts were set properly. We set posts in concrete below frost depth with the grade sloped away from them.