CASCARA
A cedar-and-glass house set back among Sitka spruce on the BC coast, its terrace held by a hand-placed granite wall with salal and native shrubs planted through it, weathered timber chairs on the gravel below.

LANDSCAPE DESIGN · VANCOUVER, BC

Gardens the rainforest would recognize.

Native-plant landscapes, rooftop terraces, and coastal gardens for the Pacific Northwest.

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A garden here shouldn't fight the rain, the moss, or the mountains. It should belong to them.

— Maren Ellis & Theo Nakamura, principals

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THE FLORA LIBRARY

Know your neighbours.

Every Cascara garden is planted from a living library of Pacific Northwest natives. Meet the species we return to again and again.

A dense salal thicket of thick, glossy oval leaves carrying small clusters of ripening blue-black berries.

Salal

Gaultheria shallon

Evergreen groundwork; the coast's most forgiving shrub.

Sword fern fronds arching in the filtered light beneath tall conifers.

Sword Fern

Polystichum munitum

Architecture for shade — four feet of evergreen structure, zero fuss.

A near-circular vine maple leaf lit from behind, nine shallow toothed lobes fanning from a single point.

Vine Maple

Acer circinatum

A small tree that does autumn better than anything imported.

Browse the library →

Stone, cedar, and patience.

Hand-set granite slabs stepping down between mossed stone shoulders.

We build with what the coast builds with: basalt and granite set by hand, rough-sawn cedar left to silver, and soil biology treated as infrastructure.

Weathered cedar boards silvered by rain, their grain raised and knots dark.

Our crews return to every garden in its first three seasons. Planting is the beginning of the work, not the end of it.

Walk your site with us.

A consultation begins with two hours on your land — what grows, where the water goes, where the light falls. Book yours and we'll bring the boots.

Book a consultation