Landscape Design & Installation in Clark County, WA
Full yard design and installation — planting plans, beds, borders and mulch built around plants that actually thrive in zone 8b.
Get a Free EstimateWhether it is a bare new-construction lot or a tired yard that has not been touched in twenty years, the same principle applies: get the bones right — grade, drainage, hardscape, irrigation — and then plant into them. Planting first and fixing drainage later means digging up plants you paid for.
Designing for this climate
Clark County sits in USDA zone 8b, with wet mild winters and a genuinely dry July through September. That combination kills a surprising number of plants chosen from a national garden center tag: things that want sharp winter drainage rot in our clay, and things that want summer moisture fry in August without irrigation.
We plan around plants proven in the Pacific Northwest — Japanese maples, dogwoods, hydrangeas, ferns and hellebores for shade, and dwarf conifers, ornamental grasses, barberry, spirea and lavender in the sun. We plan for mature size, not nursery size, so you are not ripping out overgrown shrubs in six years because they were planted eighteen inches from the house.
What a full installation includes
Grading and soil preparation, bed shaping and edging, planting with amended backfill, bark or rock mulch, and a plan for how each area gets watered. We coordinate the hardscape and the planting so the patio, the beds and the lawn all get built in the right order rather than fighting each other.
New construction yards
A new home in Ridgefield, Felida or Battle Ground usually comes with compacted subsoil, construction debris under a thin skin of topsoil, and downspouts discharging right at the foundation. We treat those as the starting problems. Builders are getting you a certificate of occupancy, not a landscape.
What is included
- Planting plans built around zone 8b performers
- Spaced for mature size, not nursery size
- Amended backfill in our native clay
- Shaped beds with clean, durable edging
- Bark or decorative rock mulch
- Hardscape and planting sequenced correctly
Every quote is fixed and in writing. We walk the site, tell you what the job actually needs, and price it. If we find something during the walkthrough that changes the scope, you hear it then — not as a change order halfway through.
Landscape Design & Installation: common questions
Do you charge for landscape design?
Estimates and a straightforward planting layout for work we are installing come with the project. If you want a full drawn design package to shop around or to phase over several years, that is a separate paid service and we will quote it up front.
What plants do best in Clark County?
For shade: Japanese maple, hydrangea, sword fern, hellebore, rhododendron and azalea. For sun: dwarf conifers, ornamental grasses, spirea, barberry, lavender and rosemary. The bigger factor than the plant list is drainage — most plant failures in our clay are root rot from winter wet, not cold damage.
Can we phase the project?
Yes, and for larger yards we often recommend it. We sequence it so the messy structural work — grading, drainage, walls, irrigation sleeves under future patios — happens first, and the phases that follow do not require tearing up what came before.
Bark or rock mulch?
Bark holds moisture, moderates soil temperature and breaks down into the soil, which is better for planting beds — but it needs topping up every two to three years. Rock lasts effectively forever and suits low-water beds and areas along a foundation, but it reflects heat and makes future planting changes harder. Many of our yards use both, in different zones.
Need landscape design & installation?
Free on-site estimates across Clark County. We walk the property with you, tell you what it actually needs, and put a fixed price in writing.