Complete Landscape Installation Services
Blacklotus Landscaping is a landscape contractor that creates beautiful and functional outdoor spaces that are an extension of your home. With special regard for native plants and the environment, we specialize in custom outdoor areas for residential homeowners, small businesses, larger commercial properties, and HOAs. Our installation team strives for excellence with high-quality standards. Whether you are looking to renovate an existing landscape, upgrade your curb appeal, or do a new installation, we've got you covered.
As landscaping professionals, details matter. Soil health, mulch selection, plant spacing, durable materials, water drainage, long-term function, overall design, environmental enhancement, peace, and beauty are all fundamental. Outdoor space can have a tremendous impact on your mind and soul. It can influence how you feel, how healthy the air is, and how clean the water is.
Blacklotus Landscaping offers many landscape installation services including:
Natural Alpine Rockeries
Staggered natural rock placement throughout a hillside area for stability and to create a pleasing landscape area at the same time. Large rock placements are grouped in pleasing natural formations to mimic nature and be visually beautiful. Approximately 1/3 of each natural stone boulder to be dug into the ground. In between rocks to be planted and mulched. This is a very effective way to hold up a hillside and is much more cost effective than block or natural fitted stone retaining walls.
Retaining Walls
Create a beautiful hardscape with a well-designed retaining wall.
Natural stone
Fitted natural stone quarry rock walls are some of the most beautiful retaining walls that exist. The size of the rock that can be placed with machinery also provides a very structural and functional wall, depending on the circumstances. A natural style with as much of the flat faces of the rock puzzled together and facing outwards creates a stunningly beautiful appearance.
Concrete block
There is a variety of wonderful options to choose from for concrete block retaining walls in various textures and color options that can be utilized for building walls. Walls can be utilized to maximize space, to structurally retain hillsides, and to create terraces.
Custom Planting Areas
Low maintenance, seasonal interest planting beds featuring raised, mounded soil grade changes. Utilizing high quality topsoil the grade is raised and elevated in multiple places in the landscape allowing for healthy plant growth, visual interest, and water drainage.
Planting areas to then feature large placement rock for function and aesthetic impact. A custom selection of low maintenance seasonal interest plants will be selected for year round visual interest, minimal hand pruning, appropriate light and space needs, while also having a strong focus on both native and edible plant varieties.
Planting areas will be finished out with 3 inches of double grind wood chips.
Native Plants
Native plants are used heavily in our landscape designs and plant lists. Native plants to include NW native selections appropriate for the area. By this means every landscape that we are a part of installing contributes back to the overall environment’s health while promoting plants that are the best suited for our local area.
Edible Plants
Landscapes are perfectly suited to feature edible plants throughout. They can be woven seamlessly with other native and ornamental plants to create an amazingly functional and productive landscape.
Ornamental Plant Species
Selecting climate appropriate plants for the NW region we carefully take into account seasonal interest, color, size, shape, eventual long term appearance, light requirements, and easy of care.
Custom Water Features
Waterfalls and Pond Features
From simple to highly complex water features we specialize in a natural feel and appearance, utilizing the highest quality materials, and components. Rock bubblers, cascading waterfalls, slow meandering stream beds, fish ponds, pondless systems, and extensive high flow water streams are our speciality. Low maintenance and healthy water setups are key.
Wildlife Ponds
Large-scale wildlife ponds for fish, wildlife, and the overall environment can be constructed utilizing natural bentonite clay. Often times they don't even requiring any type of artificial liner. Native plants and fish species can be introduced
Rain Gardens
We have a special interest and passion for creating and sustaining rain gardens to capture and slowly disperse water from rain, roofs, and other forms of water movement. They are wonderfully helpful and part of ongoing solutions to adapt to the reality of living with the environment all around.
Rain gardens help to filter water with a variety of soils and plant materials. Rain gardens can reduce erosion, including foundational soil erosion. They also assist in preventing massive water runoff from the land, which often causes great damage. Finally, rain gardens are an excellent way to add green space to your garden areas without adding traditional grass lawns.
Rainwater Harvesting
Rainwater harvesting is great for water conservation.
Harvesting water from appropriate structures and materials for use in exterior applications is a great way to make your landscape and your home more sustainable. Rainwater can be used to water your landscape and vegetable gardens. We have the expertise to utilize the rain that nature so abundantly provides and preserve it until it is needed during dryer times of the year.
Custom Dry Creek Beds or Running Creeks
Natural drainage systems are one of the most useful and functional ways of moving water through a landscape.
A custom dry creek bed utilizes gravity along with various types of round rock. When lots of water volume from rain or runoff makes its way through an area, it will form a running creek or slow water seepage course. Making the creek look completely natural as if it was always a part of the landscape is key for an amazing dry or running creek bed.
LED Lighting
LED lighting systems for outdoor lighting are one of the most useful investments in a landscape. They add great value to a property and are highly sought after by new homeowners. The function they provide for safety, illumination of pathways, and highlighting of feature plants is powerful.
LED Package to include WAC brand lighting with sealed units for a long-lasting system. A basic lighting system package includes 2 highlight spotlights, 16 pathway lights, wire, transformer, and installation. More extensive systems with higher quantities of lights can easily be accomplished.
Patios and Walkways
Cut Slate and Rough Gap Natural Stone
Creation of the most beautiful and functional cut slate and rough gap natural stone patios and walkways. We use the highest quality full-color standup slate in the area and meticulous preparation standards so that the finished patio will stand the test of time and can be used for tables, chairs, hot tubs, and barbecues. Natural stone lends itself to the highest quality and overall value of any material as well as the natural aesthetic beauty of the space.
Concrete Pavers
There is a variety of wonderful options to choose from for concrete pavers in various textures and color options that can be utilized for stepping stones and patios. They tend to lend a more modern feel and look to the landscape and outdoor spaces.
Fire Pit
Adding a fire pit to your landscape project is a great way to center a patio.
Garden Edging
Edging can be installed to separate and delineate different elements of a landscape, such as planting beds and pathways. Make your lawn care easier with garden edging to separate your lawn gravel areas, pathways, or garden beds. There is a diverse amount of materials that can be used for edging, such as steel, aluminum, stone, composite, brick, and wood.
Sod + Hydroseeding of new lawn areas
Do you envision a grass lawn, micro-clover, wild flower meadow, or prairie grass as part of your landscape plan? We are huge proponents that the health of lawns in the Pacific Northwest is primarily based on the quality of your topsoil.
Western WA historically has had native prairie lands that grew unbelievably healthy varieties of grasses and wildflowers. Tragically much of these lands have been changed dramatically. Lawn areas grown in lands that were previously native tree stands are not well suited for growing lawns. The soil tends to be acidic, which favors moss growth. Soils are also rather lean and rocky, as well as heavy clay in many of these areas. Some are fortunate to have sandy loam deposits.
As a result, growing the options above typically requires bringing in a large amount of high-quality topsoil with high amounts of organic matter readily available to the grass. With the proper depth of topsoil, lawn areas can have an amazing grade established for water drainage and overall aesthetics. You can have new sod installed and cut to shape, or the area can be hydroseeded with a mix of paper mulch, seed, and fertilizer.
Light Footprint Clearing + Land Prep for New Landscapes
If you are developing land for a new home, for growing food, or for a business purpose we can apply the Blacklotus ethics and long term vision planning to accomplish these goals while at the same time retaining as much of the environment, plants, and soils as possible. We also develop properties with the thought in mind of what the landscape can potentially be at the end of that journey and thus fundamentally approach the development differently than is the norm.
Light Footprint Excavation
Excavation for foundations, utility trenching, road building, and structures with a strong focus on environmental preservation and enhancement. We apply the same meticulous standards established for any of our installation projects to excavation thus achieving results that reflect well in the overall quality of the finished service.
Food and Vegetable Gardens
Growing food is a passion and an incredibly enjoyable bounty. We thoroughly look forward to help every person who crosses our path to learn how to grow food and have this be part of your landscape. The concept of growing food separate from a landscape does not have to be the case. We design and incorporate edible landscape plants seamlessly with other ornamental plants as well as a diverse amount of vegetable crops.
We also creatively make areas set aside for complete dedication to growing food such as raised boxes or entire orchards. We fully support the best approaches to growing food organically following principles of permaculture, as well as fully integrating plants species together for a long-term healthy approach to growing food. No-till and light till methods, sheet mulching, integrated manure use, and wood chip mulching are highly encouraged.
Raised Vegetable Boxes
Raised boxes for food production are best made with natural wood such as cedar that are naturally rot resistant and very safe for growing of food. When food crops come into contact with plastics and other treated woods invariably this impacts their overall health and health of those that eat the food afterwards. Our solution is all natural and organic in our approaches to growing food.
Raised Beds
Raised mounded beds are also a great method to grow food in the NW allowing for drainage off of the mounds and microclimate between the mounds.
Habitat Restoration and Native Reforestation
Humanity and the environment are intimately tied together. Both strongly impact the other. Restoring the environment, particularly with native species of plants and reforesting areas with new healthy trees, is part of the Blacklotus vision. Every landscape has the potential to be part of this process on a small or large scale.
Rooftop Gardens and Green Roofs
Building roofs are a blank canvas upon which amazing varieties of plants can be grown, whether in the form of an entire green roof or a garden oasis of potted plants. These solutions are part of the now and definitely of the future.
Beautiful landscapes can evoke creative thinking, it is as intertwined with us, and we are with it, and we have a mutually beneficial influence. So to us, shaping a new landscape and bringing it to reality is a tremendous process. We want that landscape that thrives and grows, that is full of life, that is amazingly functional, that brings you joy and peace, and is beneficial to the native environment all around us.
Be it a functional gravel road, a new seasonal interest planting bed, a native habitat restoration, a healthy and beautiful landscape for a new home, or a diversely complex project spanning many months, we are thankful to be part of the process of making your dream landscape a reality.
Looking for more?
If you're not sure where to start, Blacklotus Landscaping has in-house landscape designers with extensive experience. From hand-drawn conceptual plans to to-scale formal design work. Let our professional landscape designer make your landscape dreams a reality.
Ensure you keep a well-maintained yard by joining our post-installation maintenance schedule. Our regular maintenance services provide year-round care suited to your property's needs. You can read more about our landscape maintenance services here.