Supernature

This garden had spectacular plant moments before we did anything. The client has the only snowbrush Ceanothus I’ve seen in Seattle. One of the clients has restored habitat in Ravenna Park for decades before that was a hip thing to do. Her garden has been a repository for unusual native plants and native plant stock for transplanting to Ravenna Park.

Through this restoration-style garden renovation, we sought to go all the way with turning this city lot into  a full-on wildlife refuge. Aggressively gardeny vestiges of laurel hedge, boxwoods, and lawn are extricated and traded for a diverse and largely native tapestry. The old apple tree shelters a fern garden and the  back opens up to a micro-aspen grove and meadow.

We tried to keep out the bunnies. But they kept appearing on the game cam, along with cats and skunks. Now we let them roam and ask them not  to eat the winter irises until after they bloom.

The clients say the bird life they watch from their breakfast nook is better than ever. The garden  only got water twice last summer. Weeds haven’t been bad and the minimal garden maintenance needed keeps the owner free to be on-task with  her Ravenna park restoration work.

Photos by Jonathan Hallet, Saxon Holt, and nieces Isla and Margot.

MAGNUSON MEADOW

PUBLIC

2022-PRESENT

Landscape construction by Jonathan Hallet and Dean Drugge
In partnership with: Seattle Parks and Rec, Green Seattle Partnership, and Magnsuon Environmental Stewardship Alliance

Ever since I moved to Seattle, I've been experimenting with meadow plantings. It’s fairly challenging to get right - because without the right preparation, you’re fighting with soooo many weeds. Yet they offer an exciting alternative to lawns - requiring little input, and creating real delight for people and a lot of resources for insects and birds.

Meadows were an important ecotype of the Pacific Northwest. A lot of Seattle and Tacoma and Olympia was meadow. And the Salish peoples would manage the lands in ways that encouraged this kind of habitat because there was a lot of important food and medicine in the meadow plants. Salish tribes would frequently burn meadow areas to stop trees and shrubs from encroaching and starting a forest succession process. And now, without those practices, and generally with an attitude of fire suppression throughout, most meadows have either been developed because they're typically on nice flat ground with pretty nice soil – easy building, or have been reconsumed by forests.

To create this meadow, we started out with.. lawn. We tarped the lawn for about two years with old billboard posters. We then put a thick layer of sand over the top before seeding. Dean is a crucial part of the ‘we’ - he’s done most of this physical work, including, unbagging hundreds and hundreds of salvaged bags of sand to use for the mulch layer (a la James Hitchmough method).

Year one of growth has proved very successful with a flowering season starting in April with multiple successions, lasting well into October. Next year will have more evergreen cover once the grasses and perennials are more established.

Weeding has been easy and low-key, requiring under 10 hours in the first year for 3,600 sq. ft. This is probably the most challenging aspect of establishing a meadow garden from seed - in fact it’s been easy. We’ve doubled the meadow in Fall 2025 and are expanding further. General strategies of cutbacks, overseeding, and selective removals of plants will help us create a dynamic and diverse planting that serves the people with much more interest than a lawn provides, and diverse and extensive resources for insects and birds.

Visit the Magnuson Meadow by following the trail at the north end of Sail Sand Point that heads west - follow the path around the lawn until you reach the meadow. Thanks to Dean Drugge for the incredible hard work - he is an entire work party, and super knowledge from decades of restoration work.

Photos by Jonathan Hallet and Chris Copeland

BELLEVUE MEADOW

PUBLIC

2026

Meadow Design by Supernature
Landscape Architecture by GGN
Landscape Construction by Sellen

What if a vacant lot was activated as a pop-up landscape laboratory? ← the question David Malda of GGN was asking.

Before development or redevelopment in the city, there’s often a multi-year period of waiting. Typically, a site lays fallow and fenced off. Some weedy plants may get started, but otherwise it’s a place that doesn’t serve anyone (or any wildlife).

With distant plans for development, the client wondered what this site in downtown Bellevue could be and do in the meantime. GGN presented the idea of a low-input, high-impact temporary solution – a native meadow. This is the same sort of ecology that could and would exist here after a disturbance, and before trees (or skyscrapers) moved in.

This temporary park welcomes in the community -- human, bird, and insect – and provides a grounding amidst skyscrapers. It reminds people on their way to work what this place might have looked like before it was a city.

Go visit! It is just across the street from the Bellevue Transit Center. You can now even take light rail to it!

GGN brought us in to design the meadow. Together, we designed meadow communities that shift with topography and sun aspect, about 115 plant species in total. The whole meadow is built over structure, so with total control, we designed soils and slopes to reflect iconic meadows - the San Juan balds and the glacial outwash prairies of Olympia. Species include Balsamorhiza deltoidea, Camassia quamash, Allium cernuum, Anaphalis margaritacea, Festuca occidentalis, and many more.
Photos by Jonathan Hallet

KITSAP TREE FARM

RESIDENTIAL

2024

Landscape Architecture by Supernature
Landscape Construction by Yardvark Services
Architecture by Drew Shawver Architecture and Design

This was a collaboration with Drew Shawver Architecture + Studio DIAA, who designed the home. A property that had been clearcut maybe 20-30 years ago. It’s a young forest, with a new clearing for the house construction.

The goal for this garden was to knit the forest back together so that the house would feel like it's part of the forest again. We started out with poor sandy soil, needing to build it up over time to eventually make it cozy for the later succession species like sword ferns and douglas firs. It’s too raw and scary for those more tender forest plants right now.

How we’ve begun the garden will look very different from how the garden looks after five, 10, 20, 30 years. We're letting it be a process, to knit the forest back together.

But the priorities are making it beautiful through that whole lengthy transformation, and letting it be easy, because it's a large piece of land, and it needs to be easy, and it needs to be able to defend itself against the Scotch broom and blackberry.

We started with very nutrient poor sand. Don, our landscape contractor (Yardvark Services), had his son build a custom, a custom mixy tool to not churn, but drag through the sand as a way to mix in a layer of compost and biochar that we put over the top. The garden was then mostly planted with bare roots to maximize efficiency and plant genetic diversity.

The goal right now is to make it look nice and to cover the ground so that there's less weeding to do and less fending off noxious weeds. And the idea is that over time, the adjacent forest, the sword ferns, the salal, these things can start to seed into, and spread into the garden as the soil gets enriched by the life happening in this kind of newly formed soil. So it's the idea that we're making it work now, making it beautiful now, but also letting it evolve over time, as these other plants move in, and as the soil gets more situated.

If we tried a traditional approach of planting the final picture right now, say, of firs, cedars, salal and ferns, it would be really hostile conditions and take a lot of water. The plant growth would be really slow and we would see a lot of emptiness for a long time before it started to look like something.

So this is a way of making it an easier, gentle transition that celebrates those changes, rather than trying to force something that's fairly hard.

TERRA LINDA EICHLER

RESIDENTIAL

2023

Landscape Architecture by Supernature
Landscape Construction by Manuel FernandezMaintenance by Armando

The bench / day bed / kitchen area is inspired by Love Island Australia - places for chat - that's what I was binge-ing when this project began during pandemic. Been working on parts of this landscape since our dear friends moved in. Really exciting for the pieces to start to connect. All the things happen in this back yard - major neighborhood parties / Girl Scout troop meet up realness / dogs / natural play for kids. The day bed transforms to a stage on karaoke nights.
Photos by Jonathan Hallet

MADISON PARK BUNGALOW

RESIDENTIAL

2024

Landscape Architecture by Supernature
Architecture by Drew Shawver Architecture and Design
Design collaboration with William Gunn
Landscape Construction by Fulcrum Landscape

The gray-soggy-horsetaily long Seattle winters are not the favorite of many Seattleites, perhaps especially for this friend from Lebanon. He aspires for a well-drained, dry-feeling refuge from the gray. We endeavored to give the man (and his supportive partner) a dry-feeling haven. Native grasses fade into gravel paths. An airy canopy of olive, manzanita,  shore pine, and oak feel mediterranean, yet we’re going for a 70%+ west coast native plant palette to still feel grounded in the Pacific Northwest.

Working with architect Drew Shawver and his extremely chic yet casual design-sense is a  dream. The landscape seeks to be a fluffy and understated place to be and live. A haven even in the cold months.

I am grateful for both of the owners’ keen design sense, ability to imagine, and helping me see new ways of doing things because their vision is so clear and strong.

Photos by Jonathan Hallet

TEMPEH

RESIDENTIAL

2026

Landscape Construction by Fiddlehead GardencraftAdditional landscape services by Gaudencio Rodriguez (Lost World Landscapes)

On a critical slope at the top of Lake Washington, we were asked to design a garden around a concrete slab poured in the 90’s. We think it was originally designed as a sport court, loungey area, very California. Western Washington’s climate had other plans. It had become a beautiful mossy haven, with a few complications.

The clients told us they wanted to remove the concrete at least a little…but were open to ideas, which created a lot of possibilities. One of the best parts of this project is that the whole site is a steep slope and access was terrible. Rather than that being a PITA, it helped us keep things on site in creative ways. Of course, we wanted to depave big areas for planting, but the concrete was too heavy to haul up the hill, so all depaved areas were cut into concrete strips for seating features.

On top of all that, the whole lower hillside was covered in English Ivy. We all knew that this was our main planting opportunity and wanted to transform this zone into a dreamy northwest understory. Removing this is in process now, we will compost the ivy on site.

PT. WHITE

RESIDENTIAL

2026

Architecture by Eerkes Architects
Landscape Architecture by Supernature
Image Credits to Supernature and Eerkes Architects

This project gave us the space to create ecotones where the forest gives way to the Salish Sea, and vice versa. We also had opportunities for some really refined moments (photos coming soon-ish), where we used limestone from a local family quarry to help sculpt some subtle topography into the courtyard.

BACK-TO-FOREST GARDEN

RESIDENTIAL

ONGOING

Landscape architecture by Supernature
Landscape construction by Grass Roots Lawn and Garden Construction and Stewardship beyond words by Osoberry Habitat Service / Ghostflower Grange

Arriving at this place, there’s not much you can do besides reveling in its shocking beauty. The land, a slab of glacial bedrock jutting out into the inlet, presents a 270 degree view of the water. The river otters make their paths through the property known, and a pair of bald eagles are usually above. Crows break their crustacean bounty on the boulder you  see out from the kitchen.

This is traditionally Swinomish land, and we acknowledge the problems and contradictions of owning this land (and owning any land). But that is where we are right now.

We removed the lawn and other thirsty ‘garden’ plants. And most all garden ideas that distract from the context. And we’ve added thousands of native plants (local seed stock) whom we hope will explodeth  with vigor and support for the rich existing wildlife populations. We’ve diversified the native plant palette, pulling from the nearby San Juan Islands, native plants that could be here and perhaps will increasingly do well  here, supporting genetic migration. And extending  the seasonal availability of flowers and berries for the critters here. We don’t understand the complexities  of what supports what, but a rich diverse coastal puget sound plant community feels like a good start.

Shawn of Ghostflower Grange native seeds (buy his seeds!) has taken care of this project from the beginning. He knows things in many planes and realms about native plant care, and he is bringing astonishing plant (and ensuing insect etc) diversity to the garden. There are always no creatures. Self-sowing is ramping up. It’s truly beyond words the richness he is bringing to this land.

Some of the planting is loose and simply extends from the native edges. The new waterside planting is native but stylized, amoebic lumps of native plants that billow and offer a fluffy substrate for the water view beyond. The old douglas firs hold the slope together, and the new next-generation diverse canopy begins to take root through thick glacial till. The young plants look truly so happy to be growing into rock.
Photos by Jonathan Hallet

LUMP REVISIONIST GARDEN

RESIDENTIAL

2022

Landscape Architecture by Supernature
Landscape Construction by Gaudencio Rodriguez

What more is there to say? We started with 60s topiary lumps. We said yes but we also  wanted more in life. We wanted a Dr. Seussian fantasy. Why? Because the client and I are both big fans. The lumps needed the riotous freedom of plumes and looseness next to the giant grumpy topiaries. But really we’d have probably gone Seussian anyway.

Some lumps were removed in this process. The remaining topiaries feel colossal and  unreal, dinosaurs (or perhaps extra-large barnacles) set in a looser environment sprouting  up around them.  We go for a mainly evergreen number. A sort of Australian / New Zealand / West coast pastiche of a dry mountainside. The client is an incredible gardener but we still didn’t want  to saddle her with major maintenance. We explore what evergreen can look like beyond  dark green lumps. It can also look like silver Californian manzanitas, native sedges, and wispy Australian tea trees.

VOLUNTEER PARK GARDEN

RESIDENTIAL

2024

Landscape Architecture by Supernature Landscape Construction by Avid Landscape

The goals for this garden were to create habitat for children, for free play within a native plant habitat garden. It has topiary, lawn, flatness, and sculpting. It's on the edge of Volunteer Park, so we were trying to kind of knit it back into the park to let the pretend like the park is coming around and giving it a big hug, and bringing some of that wildness into the backyard and around to the front yard.

I made this spectrum with a x axis and y axis as way to connect the gardens I'm talking about today.

There's no dogma to it, take it or leave it. So on one axis is a spectrum from controlled to not controlled, and on the other is a spectrum from a fixed picture to a dynamic/evolving garden. This garden is more highly controlled because it's in tighter quarters, and I'd say the front garden, in full sun, is a more dynamic/evolving garden that will take a fair amount of control or stewardship over time to let it turn into a more mature planting with different canopy layers.

We planted a very dense and diverse tapestry of bear roots and plants from pots. We took the flat level, we added a hill feature with a creek coming down with it to mirror the groundwater that moves that way from the park, and to topographically feel more connected to the park. We're also doing habitat, native plant restoration on the outside of the fence as park stewards to create more of a complex habitat edge.

CELEBRATION GARDEN AT
SF BOTANIC GARDEN

PUBLIC

2020

Landscape Design by Lutsko Associates in collaboration with Mathew Stephens and Ryan Guilou at SFBG
Site work and conrete by Dryco
Planting installation by SFBG

Getting to work on a project at the SFBG was a straight-from-heaven dream. I got to be project manager and lead on this while employed at Lutsko Associates in San Francisco, working alongside  Ron Lutsko, Andrea Kovol, Myra Messner and Rafael Tiffany. The Celebration Garden was conceived  to be a magical event space for garden lunches, weddings and more. The garden needed a way  to make money to support the wider botanic garden.

This 1.5 acre garden was already home to special landscape interventions, most notably a Thomas Church pavilion. We saved as much as we could. SFBG wanted to make a garden experience that no other botanic garden could have — so we capitalized on the SF coastal fog climate to emulate a tropical cloud-forest. The plantings are meant to channel Fern Gully, but in a low-maintenance, high-impact sort of way.

You enter the garden into a cocktail lounge under palms and big old maytens, with the Thomas Church pavilion in the distance. Then you move through  to the main event lawn, which is encircled in cloud  forest. Two distinct canopy layers of palm trees  will emerge in time, the lower one providing a human-scale canopy, and the other a more magical scale canopy. The garden has been busy with events since getting planted!