Landscaping in Orchards, WA means working with gravel. The Sifton and Lauren soils under most of this part of Clark County are full of pebbles and drain so quickly that an unwatered lawn browns within weeks of the July dry spell, while a few low pockets of clay and hardpan stay soggy all winter.
Orchards is also one of the fastest-filling places we serve. It grew from 19,556 people in 2010 to 27,729 in 2020, and roughly one home in three dates from 2010 or later. Bogar Landscaping reaches Orchards in about 30 minutes from Woodland by I-5 and I-205, and we work throughout it, from Sifton in the south up to the Brush Prairie and Hockinson edges.
Orchards, WA: From Fourth Plain Farms to Full Subdivisions
Orchards was called Fourth Plain until 1904, when residents voted to rename it for the area's many fruit trees, and a trolley ran out from Vancouver, WA to serve it from 1910 until 1926. The soil explains why the orchards did well. USDA describes irrigated Sifton ground growing caneberries and tree fruits.
Today the fruit trees are mostly gone and Orchards is unincorporated suburbia: about 29,000 people on 5.4 square miles, bordered by Five Corners on the west, Brush Prairie to the north, Hockinson to the northeast and the Vancouver, WA city limits to the south. The median home was built in 1998, so yards run from 1990s lots with grown-up trees to bare-dirt new builds. Most of the area is in the Evergreen School District, with edges in the Battle Ground and Hockinson districts, and Clark County's Orchards Community Park is close by.
Lots sit close together. That shapes what Orchards households ask a landscaper for:
- Privacy along back fences, usually an arborvitae hedge or a mixed screen.
- Patios that turn a small backyard into usable space.
- Sprinklers and drip that keep a lawn and beds alive on ground that will not hold water.
- Finished yards for new homes that came with fill dirt and little else.
Sifton Gravel, Lauren Loam and the Wet Spots in Between
The Sifton soil series was first described right here in Clark County, just off NE 86th Street near 94th Avenue. It is well drained with very rapid permeability, and pebbles make up 20 percent of the upper layers and up to 55 percent of the deepest. Lauren gravelly loam, the other soil USDA maps across much of Orchards, formed in old alluvium and volcanic-ash loess and runs 35 to 55 percent rock fragments. Its type location is also in Clark County, about eight miles east of Vancouver, WA.
| Soil | Drainage | What it means for your yard |
|---|---|---|
| Sifton gravelly loam | Very rapid | Water and fertilizer pass the roots quickly; lawns need regular summer water |
| Lauren gravelly loam | Well drained | Rocky digging; planting holes need widening and compost |
| Dollar loam | Moderately well, over a hardpan | Water perches on the hardpan; puddles linger on lawns after rain |
| Cove silty clay loam | Poorly drained | Low pockets that stay saturated from December into spring |
So one Orchards street can need a sprinkler upgrade on one lot and a French drain two doors down. We dig a test hole before quoting either, because the map is a starting point, not a site survey.
Getting to Orchards, Permits and Storm Season
SR-503 begins in Orchards at Fourth Plain and runs about 54 miles north through Battle Ground to I-5 in Woodland, where we are based. Most days we come down I-5 and across I-205, about half an hour.
Most of Orchards is unincorporated, so Clark County's permit rules apply. Retaining walls over 4 feet, measured from the bottom of the footing, and walls holding up a load such as a driveway need a permit and engineering. The City of Vancouver, WA has annexed land along the Orchards edge, so we confirm which jurisdiction covers your lot before we quote a wall.
Storms hit this side of the county hard. During the January 2024 ice storm nearly 20,000 Clark Public Utilities accounts were without power on January 17, and the storm cost the utility about $26 million. Broken limbs and split shrubs from events like that are what our storm debris cleanup is for.
