North Vancouver Landscape Design
North Vancouver gardens are steep, wet, and shaded — often all three. Lots climbing toward Grouse and Seymour can drop several metres across their width, which turns a straightforward patio into a grading exercise. Rainfall on the North Shore runs well above the regional average, so drainage isn't an afterthought; water has to be given somewhere to go before anything gets built on top of it. And the same second-growth conifers that make these properties beautiful cast dense, permanent shade that rules out most of a conventional plant list.
Gardenia has been designing landscapes in North Vancouver for over 40 years, including many projects recognized with a BC Landscape Award of Excellence. That work includes terraced garden design on sloped lots, entry and front garden renovations, patio and water feature design, and full planting plans for shaded North Shore properties.
How we approach a steep site. Grade comes first, because every other decision follows from it. Terracing converts an unusable slope into a sequence of level spaces, each wide enough to plant properly rather than just retain soil. Stairs and paths are set to a comfortable rhythm rather than the shortest line, which matters on a site you'll walk several times a day. Glass railings keep the view open where there is one; solid walls do the work where there isn't.
Planting for shade and rain. Deep shade is a design condition, not a limitation. Japanese forest grass, hydrangea, heuchera, ferns, and Japanese maples give colour and movement in light that would starve a conventional border. The North Shore's mild, wet microclimate also supports plants that struggle elsewhere in Metro Vancouver — windmill palms and larger-leaved evergreens among them — which is why North Vancouver gardens can read as more lush than their counterparts across the water.
Seeing it before it's built. Every project can be modelled in 3D before construction begins. On steep ground, this matters more than anywhere else: grade changes and sightlines are almost impossible to read from a flat plan, and moving a terrace in the model costs nothing.Write your text here...
Award-Winning North Vancouver Single-Family Residence Garden
This North Vancouver residence received a BC Landscape Award of Excellence.
North Vancouver's terrain rarely gives you a flat lot. Here, a sharp grade change is resolved through a sequence of broad stone terraces and low retaining walls, each one wide enough to plant properly rather than just hold back soil.
Glass railings keep the descent open to the view. Windmill palms and pink hydrangeas give the planting a subtropical weight that suits the North Shore's sheltered microclimate, warmer and wetter than most of Metro Vancouver, and capable of supporting plants that struggle elsewhere in the region.
The terrace is sized for real furniture and real gatherings, with a fire table extending the season into spring and autumn. A boulder-and-basalt water feature runs along the far edge, masking street noise and giving the space a sound of its own.
Large-format pavers with planted joints handle drainage on a site that receives well over the regional average rainfall - a practical decision that also softens the transition from paving to planting.
North Shore front gardens are often written off as too dark to plant well. This one uses that condition rather than fighting it: golden Japanese forest grass massed along both sides of the walk, laceleaf and upright Japanese maples overhead, heuchera and low evergreen groundcover filling in beneath.
The curve of the path is deliberate. It slows the approach and reveals the entry gradually instead of all at once.
Family Memorial Garden
This memorial garden is organized around a single destination: a covered pavilion set above a constructed waterfall, reached by a flagstone path that winds up through the planting rather than heading straight for it.
The route matters as much as the arrival. Lantern lighting, low stone walls, and layered planting keep the walk unhurried, and the sound of moving water carries through the whole garden. Rhododendrons, Japanese maples, and evergreen structure hold the space year-round, so it reads as intentional in February as it does in September.
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