Salal(503) 555-0147
Sheet
L-4.0
Subject
Completed gardens
Locality
Portland metro

Every photograph here says how old the planting is.

Including the youngest, which looks like a young garden — thin, correctly spaced, and years off. That is the only way this page is worth anything to somebody trying to work out what they are actually buying.

Each project pairs the photographs with its planting plan, drawn at mature spread. Compare the two and you can see the argument the drawing was making.

  • A brick path with moss growing in its joints curving away between deep planting — sword ferns and low evergreen shrubs at the near edge, large-leaved rhododendrons closing overhead, and a tree turning orange behind them, all under flat grey light.
    Year nineLadd's Addition

    The garden under the maple

    A hundred-year-old bigleaf maple, a lawn that had not worked under it for a decade, and owners who wanted to stop fighting the tree.

    Installed
    2017
    Size
    1,900 sq ft
    Build
    $54,000
    See it across 9 years
  • A man in work gloves and a grey shirt building a low stone retaining structure behind timber shuttering in a garden, an old fruit tree and a wheelbarrow behind him, looking down at the stone he is placing.
    Year fiveBull Mountain, Tigard

    The clay slope

    A slope that shed water into the house, a lawn nobody could mow safely, and a seep that four previous drainage attempts had not touched.

    Installed
    2021
    Size
    4,200 sq ft
    Build
    $118,000
    See it across 5 years
  • A forest floor entirely covered in deep undulating moss with small ferns pushing through it, in flat diffuse light that shows no direct sun.
    Year sevenAlameda

    The rain garden on the ridge

    Two downspouts discharging onto a path, a parking strip of dead grass, and an owner who wanted the roof water to stop being somebody else's problem.

    Installed
    2019
    Size
    2,400 sq ft
    Build
    $61,000
    See it across 7 years
  • A narrow stone path almost swallowed by planting — ferns arching in from both sides at knee height and tall white umbels of flower leaning over the stone, in soft green light with no direct sun.
    Year eightSellwood

    The garden with no room

    Nine hundred square feet, a garage taking a third of it, four feet of 1920s basement spoil under the whole thing, and a family of four.

    Installed
    2018
    Size
    900 sq ft
    Build
    $38,000
    See it across 8 years

Nothing here is finished.

Every one of these gardens is still changing, and the youngest will look completely different by the time it has been here long enough to appear as an old one. That is the job. If you want to know what yours would look like in year seven, the design phase is where that gets drawn.

Start a design
Call (503) 555-0147Start a design