Mercer Island is a hill in a lake, and that geometry sets almost everything about landscaping here. Very few properties are flat. Most fall away in at least one direction, and a good number fall away in two.
Holding the grade
Retaining walls and terracing are the bulk of our construction work on the island. A single tall wall is usually the wrong answer: two shorter terraces hold the same grade, frequently stay below the height that triggers engineering, cost less, and give you planting space in between. Drystack ledgestone sits particularly well against the mature conifer that characterises island properties.
Every wall gets drainage behind it. Saturated soil on a slope is heavy and it pushes hard, and a leaning wall on a lake-facing lot is an expensive thing to rebuild.
The tree code
Mercer Island regulates tree removal more tightly than the surrounding cities. That affects what can be taken out to open a view or make room for a build, and it affects replanting obligations. We scope projects with that in mind and will tell you early where a plan runs into it, rather than discovering it halfway through.
View lines and planting
A great deal of island design work is about managing sight lines: keeping a view to the water open while still screening the neighbouring house. That is a planting problem rather than a hardscape one, and it depends on choosing species by mature height rather than by nursery-pot height.
What we do here
Retaining walls, terracing, stone steps and paths on the slopes, planting plans built around view lines and a mature canopy, and cleanup and renovation work on residential, condo and HOA grounds.
Our standing maintenance plans run in Seattle, Shoreline, Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace, so island work is design, build and scheduled one-off jobs rather than a recurring visit.