HD Landscape and Maintenance designs and installs sustainable landscaping in Lake Oswego, OR — Pacific Northwest native plantings, drought-tolerant beds, and irrigation built to use less water. We work throughout Clackamas County and the Portland metro. Oregon LCB #9977.
By Donavan Hesedahl, Owner/Operator · Last updated July 2026
Sustainable landscaping is design and maintenance that reduces a property’s water, chemical, and labor inputs by matching plants to the site rather than forcing the site to support the plants. In practice it means native and climate-adapted species, soil built up instead of amended annually, irrigation sized to actual plant need, and stormwater kept on site rather than pushed into the street.
It is not a style. A sustainable Lake Oswego landscape can look formal or wild — the difference is under the surface, in what the property costs to keep alive in August and what it sends downhill in January.
Two facts about this city change how sustainable design actually works here, and neither applies in most of the metro.
Your water and your runoff go to the same river. Lake Oswego’s drinking water is drawn from the Clackamas River, treated at the city’s plant in West Linn, and delivered from an intake in Gladstone. The Oswego Lake watershed drains to the Willamette. So reducing irrigation demand and reducing chemical runoff aren’t two separate virtues here — they’re the same watershed, upstream and downstream of the same community.
The tree canopy is a regulated asset. Lake Oswego’s Tree Code (LOC Chapter 55) is among the strictest in the metro: a Type I permit is limited to two trees per calendar year on a single-family residential lot, and anything over 5 inches DBH that doesn’t qualify for a Type I, dead, hazard, emergency, or verification permit needs a Type II with staff review and a public comment period. Additional restrictions apply within the 25-foot Oswego Lake Special Setback and on Sensitive Lands.
That second point has a design consequence people miss. In most cities, “sustainable redesign” can involve removing a struggling ornamental and starting over. In Lake Oswego, the mature canopy is effectively fixed — so sustainable design here means designing underneath established trees, not around a blank slate. That’s a shade-and-root-competition problem, and it drives almost every plant decision on a Lake Oswego lot.
Which is genuinely convenient, because the PNW natives that thrive in dry shade under a Douglas fir are the same ones that need the least water once established.
Native plant selection here is mostly a question of how much sun a spot gets after the canopy leafs out. What we plant most, by condition:
Dry shade under conifers — the hardest condition on most Lake Oswego lots, and where natives outperform everything else:
Part shade and woodland edge — the transition band along most back fence lines:
Full sun and drought-tolerant — south and west exposures, parking strips, hot slopes:
Wet feet and swale bottoms — and on Lake Oswego’s heavy clay there is usually somewhere with wet feet:
One honest caveat: native does not mean no-maintenance, and it does not mean no irrigation. Natives need supplemental water through roughly their first two to three summers to establish. The payoff comes after that, when a bed that used to run three times a week runs occasionally or not at all.
Yes, and in Lake Oswego there’s a specific, verifiable path to it.
Outdoor irrigation is the largest single driver of a Lake Oswego water bill between June and September. Cutting irrigated turf area, replacing thirsty ornamentals with established natives, converting bed watering from overhead spray to inline drip, and putting the system on a weather-based controller all reduce demand — and unlike most claims in this industry, you can read the result on your own bill. Lake Oswego bills in CCF, where one CCF is 748 gallons, so a reduction shows up as a number you can track month over month.
Two things to know before you count on it. The program runs on a limited seasonal window and closes when the year’s allocation is used, so timing matters — check the City’s rebate programs page or call Water Conservation at 503-675-3747 for current status rather than assuming it’s open. And note that Lake Oswego runs its own program independently: the Clackamas River Water Providers conservation program explicitly does not cover Lake Oswego or Tigard customers, so rebate information you find for neighboring Clackamas County cities won’t apply to you.
The City also offers free water conservation kits that include soil moisture probes and hose timers — small items, but a soil moisture probe is the single cheapest way to find out you’ve been overwatering.
Details on the sustainable services themselves are on our sustainable landscaping service page — ⚠️ replace with confirmed service hub URL.
The Backyard Habitat Certification Program — run jointly by Columbia Land Trust and Bird Alliance of Oregon — certifies residential properties, not contractors. A homeowner enrolls, gets a site visit and a customized report, and works toward certification at silver, gold, or platinum level across four criteria: removing invasive weeds, planting native species, managing stormwater, and reducing or eliminating pesticide use. Lake Oswego sits inside the program’s service area and has a lot of participating properties.
To be clear about our own position: we are not a certified company, because no such certification exists in this program — it’s awarded to yards. What we do is the installation work that gets a property there: pulling English ivy, Himalayan blackberry, and clematis; installing native plant communities that satisfy the native-percentage thresholds; building rain gardens and swales for the stormwater criterion; and maintaining without the pesticide inputs that would disqualify a site.
If certification is your goal, enroll with the program first so you have your site report and target level, then bring us the report. Working to a defined criteria list is far cheaper than installing first and retrofitting to qualify.
Sustainable installations usually cost more up front than a conventional planting of the same size and less over a ten-year horizon. The up-front premium is real and worth naming: native plant material often starts in smaller container sizes, soil preparation is more involved, and a first-two-summers establishment watering plan is part of the job rather than an afterthought.
Where the money comes back: lower summer water use, no annual bedding replacement, reduced or eliminated chemical inputs, and less labor per season once beds close in. Drip conversion and controller upgrades typically pay back fastest.
We quote after a site visit, because sun exposure, soil, drainage, and existing canopy vary enormously between a Mountain Park slope and a flat First Addition lot.
In Lake Oswego we work Lake Grove · Waluga · Westlake · Palisades · Mountain Park · Forest Highlands · First Addition · Old Town · Glenmorrie · Hallinan Heights · Oak Creek · Lakewood · McVey–South Shore · North Shore–Country Club · Uplands · Westridge · Evergreen · Rosewood · Birdshill.
Site conditions shift meaningfully across the city, and it changes the plant list. Glenmorrie, Forest Highlands, and Mountain Park are sloped and heavily canopied — dry shade, root competition, and erosion control drive those designs. Palisades and Westlake run flatter on heavy clay, where the constraint is winter drainage more than summer drought, so swales and wet-tolerant natives do more work. Lots in McVey–South Shore and North Shore near the lake carry the 25-foot Special Setback and often Sensitive Lands considerations, which means confirming what’s regulated before designing, not after.
Outside city limits we serve West Linn, Oregon City, Tualatin, Wilsonville, Clackamas, and Dunthorpe, plus Aloha, Beaverton, and Tigard on Portland’s Westside, where we’re based.
HD Landscape and Maintenance is an Oregon LCB-licensed landscape contracting business, license #9977. Request a free sustainable landscaping consultation →
In the PNW it means designing for a climate with wet winters and genuinely dry summers — two opposite problems on the same property. Practically: native and climate-adapted plants that tolerate a summer drought without irrigation once established, soil built for drainage on heavy clay, stormwater managed on site through swales and rain gardens rather than pushed to the street, and no reliance on chemical inputs. In Lake Oswego it also means designing under an existing regulated tree canopy rather than clearing and starting fresh.
It depends on light and moisture more than anything. For dry shade under conifers: sword fern, salal, low Oregon grape, and wild ginger. For part shade: red-flowering currant, vine maple, oceanspray, and evergreen huckleberry. For full sun and drought: Oregon grape, kinnikinnick, yarrow, snowberry, and Douglas aster. For wet or swale areas: red-twig dogwood, Pacific ninebark, slough sedge, and Douglas spirea. All of them still need supplemental water for their first two to three summers to establish.
Yes. Outdoor irrigation is the biggest driver of a Lake Oswego summer water bill, so reducing irrigated turf, switching beds to inline drip, and installing a weather-based controller measurably lowers usage. Lake Oswego bills in CCF units of 748 gallons, so the reduction is trackable on your own statement. The City also offers up to $200 in utility bill credit toward a professional water use assessment, offered first-come first-served during irrigation season.
It’s a residential property certified by the Backyard Habitat Certification Program, run by Columbia Land Trust and Bird Alliance of Oregon. Homeowners enroll, receive a site visit and report, and work toward silver, gold, or platinum certification across four criteria: invasive weed removal, native plant installation, stormwater management, and pesticide reduction. The program certifies properties rather than contractors — there is no “certified landscaper” designation. We do the installation and maintenance work that helps a Lake Oswego property meet the criteria.
Lake Oswego water customers can receive up to $200 in utility bill credit toward a professional water use assessment through the City’s Water Conservation Program, offered first-come first-served during irrigation season with a window that closes each year. The City also provides free conservation kits including soil moisture probes and hose timers. Important caveat: Lake Oswego runs its program independently and does not participate in the Clackamas River Water Providers rebate program, so incentives advertised for neighboring Clackamas County cities don’t apply to Lake Oswego addresses. Programs and amounts change, so confirm current status with Water Conservation at 503-675-3747 before budgeting around a rebate.
HD Landscape and Maintenance LLC 6581 SW 192nd Ave Aloha, OR 97007
Phone: (971) 336-5520
Email: hdlandscapellc@gmail.com
Hours: Monday–Saturday, 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. · Sunday, Closed
License: Oregon LCB #9977
Serving Lake Oswego and surrounding areas including Lake Grove, Palisades, Mountain Park, First Addition, Old Town, and Glenmorrie, plus West Linn, Oregon City, Tualatin, Wilsonville, and the greater Portland metro area.