The photo below shows a view through some Miscanthus into a very large pond.

This next shot shows landscaping with a Camas stone Irish moss encrusted pathway.

The next photo shows a interlocking concrete paver patio with cultured stone veneered planter boxes below a cedar pergola. The Lewis river is off to the right.

The next photo is a great example of what low voltage lighting with led, can accomplish.

The next photo shows a beautful blue stone pathway through the gardens to a wonderful blue stone patio and brick seat wall.

Serving Vancouver and Portand with landscape industry certified employees you can trust.

Sort of pulled the title from the Beatles, but I thought it worked.
This job has a little of every thing for those that want the high end of landscaping. This December 2009, we received a grand award from WALP for residential construction over $50,000.00

We built or installed the following:
A cobble paver driveway approx. 2500′
A koi pond
Planting
Irrigation including spray and drip
Boulder wall
Gravel pathways
Cultured stone work
Serving Vancouver and Portland with outdoor living in mind.
Landscape Industry Certified

There are many types of retaining walls. Here are some examples of a few types of walls
Boulder walls have been popular for many years. There are advantages with boulder walls. One is they tend to run a little cheaper to install. They look rustic and serve their purpose if installed correctly.

The problems they run into are:
1. They take up a lot of space horizontally.
2. Soil tends to slip through the crevasses of the boulders.
3. They pretty much have one type of look. It seems that if boulders are common in the area, every one tends to have them installed in their yards.

SRW walls or Segmented Retaining Walls are also very popular. They really don’t have any problems if installed correctly. It is very important however, to make sure they have adequate drainage behind the walls.
It is also true of boulders walls, but the drainage usually is gravel or drain rock behind the wall. It is difficult to install piped drainage behind a boulder wall. I tend to go back about three feet and install a french drain.
The advantages of Segmented Retaining Walls are many:
1. The install vertically very well. For example: a three foot segmented retaining wall takes up the width
of the wall unit plus usually about 1″ set back per block. Most blocks are 6″ high and one foot in depth so 18″ total set back. A boulder wall 3′ high can take up to 4-5 feet of your yard. Not to nice if you have the typical small yard. You need as much space as possible.
2. Segmented retaining walls have many styles
radius faced, straight faced, celtic,
3. Segmented retaining walls have many colors available.
4. Drainage is necessary behind all walls but easier and work better than a typical boulder wall.
5. There are many different price ranges for segmented retaining walls. Some are about the same cost of boulder walls and range up to the price of CMU block walls faced with cultured stone.

CMU Block walls faced with natural stone, cultured stone and brick.
1. These types of walls have all the same advantages of segmented retaining walls. They are a little more labor intensive to install. Thus they cost more.
2. The styles and colors of natural stone, cultured stone, brick are almost endless. You can definitely find what you want for color, texture and style.
Make sure your landscape contractor can perform you retaining wall work.
Make sure they are licensed and bonded
Ask them for references.
Are they certified?
Did you get a good impression when you met for the estimate.
It’s not the cheapest price but the value for what you are getting a bid on.
Is the contractor service oriented?
Do the references check out?
Does the contractor offer a warranty for their work?
For quality oriented certified award winning landscape contractors, Woody’s Custom Landscaping, Inc. is it.
Servicing Portland Oregon and Vancouver Washington with pride.
Lic. #8732

This project highlights some great cultured stone work as well as spectacular paver patio. The pavers are mixed holland harvest blend. We did add some charcoal to the body of the patio. All the materials were supplied by Mutual Materials. Past the cultured stone wall is a 12′ drop into a sports court. The cultured stone rail serves as a guard against those who may be foolish enough to get to close to the edge. Note the cultured stone bench. It serves as a great place to sit down and enjoy the day. The design was done by Planning Solutions here in Vancouver.

The landscaping project highlighted in this blog, is one of our favorites. Besides being a 4 month job for us, it exemplifies many of our skills. You will see in the video 2 different water features. One a front entry pond and water fall as well as a huge pond, or should we call it a small lake.
Another focal point of the job was the cultured stone wall in front. This also was done by us.
The only item not done by us on this project was 110 electrical. We did however, install all the low voltage lighting.
We also constructed many interlocking concrete paver pathways and patios. A beautiful vegetable garden area, and flagstone entry ways and patio.
The design was done by Christine Ellis of Gregg and Ellis Landscape Design.She is one of our favorite landscape designers. With her knowledge of plants we installed all of her suggestions on plantings. This helped us get a Distinction Award from WALP this last year for residential construction over $100,000.00.
If you want qualified, certified, award winning service oriented landscapers, Woody’s Custom Landscaping Inc., would be who to contact.

Last year we won an award from WALP for a Residential Construction job we installed in Vancouver.
We installed a large paver patio, a very long and heavily engineered CMU block wall. The inside of the CMU block was faced with cultured stone. It also included a pergola ,stairway to the sports court, a water feature, plantings and low voltage lights. Below are a few photos from that job.

Give Woody an e mail at woody@woodyscustomlandscaping.com

Saw this on Mutual’s Facebook blog. It is very true. It is why our company uses Mutual Materials Products.
We believe in service ourselves and only offer a quality product. I am proud to use Mutual Materials products on a daily basis. They are our source for concrete pavers , CMU block, segmented retaining wall units, stone, gravel, flagstone, cultured stone and on and on the list goes. They support us and we support them.
We are proud to be a Mutual Materials Preferred Contractor. Please enjoy the article below.

Serving Customers for over 100 years
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Mutual Materials celebrates its 109th year in business in 2009. That means we have navigated a depression and some dozen recessions prior to the current one we are experiencing. That got me thinking about what it is that has led to our success though all these down economic cycles.

Sure we have a great breadth of quality products that are functional, stylish, and timeless.
You need those to be successful but products alone won’t keep you in business. It always has and still does boil down to taking care of our customers. Our number one priority for all these years has been and always will be…customer satisfaction.

So what’s new in how we service you, the customer? Well, in the past year we have added branches in Kalispell, Montana; Hayden, Idaho; and Bend, Oregon, bringing our total to 19 in the Northwest.

Recently we replaced our two smaller Vancouver branches with our flagship branch with over four acres of products and outdoor displays, and the largest natural stone inventory in the greater Portland/Vancouver metropolitan area.

We’ve also expanded our hours so you can now visit us on Saturdays in most markets. For those branches that aren’t open on Saturdays, we have longer Friday hours during the summer months. Our Vancouver, Bellevue, and Spokane branches have even added a Landscape Designer program on Saturdays, which provides an on site landscape designer to assist you with your projects. You can stop by these locations on Saturday and receive a free 30-minute consultation on your backyard project.

What hasn’t changed for all these years is that you will still find our branches staffed with friendly, knowledgeable, professional people willing to help you make your project a success. Come check us out.

Sincerely,

Craig Olsen
Branch Operations Manager

360-687-1882
www.woodyscustomlandscaping.com

WE have been using cultured stone applications for many years at Woody’s Custom Landscaping. Please enjoy our award winning work below. If it’s facing a column, wall, home, fireplace, Woody’s Custom Landscaping will make it happen with quality.
Below is an award winning example of our work around a sports court.

Another award winner

A inside job for True Religion Brand Jeans at Pioneer Square

Woody’s Custom Landscaping is here to SERVE you. Call us at 360-687-1882
or www.woodyscustomlandscaping.com

If you own a newer home. Chances are you live on a sloped piece of property. Either your property drops off from your home or you have a small mountain looming as soon as you look out. Every one is in need of some sort of outdoor flat space. The sod lawn for the kids to play on. A larger patio for enjoying the Pacific Northwest’s great late spring, summer and fall weather. Retaining walls are the answer for that flat space.

There are many types of retaining walls. The most popular are natural rock or boulders walls and segmented concrete units. Boulder walls usually take up a lot of lateral space. For a 3′ wall you can usually count on about 3-5′ of flat space taken up by the wall itself. Segmented concrete units will take up about 75% less space a they are built more vertically. Drainage is critical both both types of walls. A well designed drainage system is a must.

Another type of wall is a CMU block wall. This is a wall with a concrete subslab with parallel rebar, CMU units built up that are built with mortar and concrete filled. In many cases these types of walls are the same price range as a segmented concrete wall. You can install CMU that is textured on one side or face with cultured stone or natural stone. You may be surprised to learn that the cost of faced walls like CMU are not much more than top of the line segmented concrete unit walls. The best thing about these kind of wall is the ability to really hold back the soil and the fact that they can be built totally vertical. Two years ago we built a 12′ high CMU block wall, that held back the rear patio. Below the wall a sports court wall built. We won a distintion award from WALP in 2009 on that project.

Flat space in your back or front yard is a common theme we run into when we bid the landscaping for new homes, Builders forget that that 10by10 concrete patio really doesn’t cut it.

For your retaining wall needs in the  Portland Metro area and Vancouver Clark County, give Woody’s a call. One half of our employees are certified for wall and paver patio and walkway construction.

www.woodyscustomlandscaping.com   or 360-687-1882

Most of the time I really don’t like to add too many hardscaping elements in a landscape design. I had one client that had her whole yard filled with beautiful variegated flagstone. The problem was that some unqualified person or contractor installed it all over gravel, using many small pieces. This can be acceptable but in this case it was just a little too much rock. In the video below just think that all the area you see was flagstone. Now they have planters and plenty of entertaining space.

We installed a couple 14′ diameter paver patios and used some of the variegated stone which was installed over a concrete sub base and mortared.  I think the combination worked well since the division line between pavers and flagstone was a pergola. We planted a lot of perennials at the job but they were small at the time and the video does not show them well. It is surprising what a month can do for growth of plants.

We install paver patios, flagstone, cultured stone or just about any masonry if it’s outside. We however have installed inside cultured stone, slate etc.

We are proud to be a” Green Industry Professional”, serving Portland and Vancouver areas

Check out all of our landscaping services. We have over twenty years of happy clients.
360-687-1882

www.woodyscustomlandscaping.com