West Coast gardeners are ditching manicured lawns for wild, native landscapes

A quiet shift is taking place in Vancouver backyards and gardens. The manicured lawn, once the default dream for homeowners, is giving way to spaces that feel less controlled and more alive — places where native plants thrive and nature pulses through the seasons.

Landscape architect Andrew van Egmond, founder of Designing Landscape, has watched this transformation accelerate across the Lower Mainland and beyond. Originally from the Netherlands and now based in British Columbia, van Egmond works on projects from Ucluelet and Whistler to Quadra Island and Summerland. His work is subtle, minimal, and deeply site-specific — shaped by local materials, native planting, and the surrounding landscape.

"It's a movement that is present in landscape design and landscape architecture globally," van Egmond says. But what distinguishes West Coast design is the scale of the natural world already present. "In B.C., the mountains, forests, shorelines and native plant communities are so prominent. We are fortunate to live in such an amazing part of the world, where nature is abundant, and what we all value and enjoy is something we want to have closer to home."

This shift reflects a growing awareness that we've moved away from nature too much — and need to reconnect. Van Egmond points to designers such as Dave Demers and Botanica Design, as well as Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf (whose work includes Millennium Park in Chicago and the High Line in New York), as helping make looser, more naturalistic planting feel accepted by a wider public. "The next step is more radical and more local," van Egmond says. "I think now it's time to go one step further and let the spontaneity of a real native planting system back into our spaces close to where we live, our homes."

The practical payoff is real: less yearly mulching, less heavy irrigation, less reliance on exotic plants that can become invasive. "I think we are moving to a yard that is more in tune with nature, supporting the local ecosystem and accepting the flux of the seasons and nature that we so much value in B.C.," van Egmond says.

For homeowners wanting to make an outdoor space feel elevated without being overdesigned, van Egmond suggests starting by looking at what's already around you — the trees beyond the fence, the borrowed view, the slope of the site, the light, the native plants that thrive nearby.

"Don't do too much, but what you do, do it well," he says. The trick is to create interest without clutter. He recommends large gestures rather than decoration, and a simple, restrained material palette. The planting can be rich, layered and wild, but the hardscaping should remain calm and well-balanced.

This fall, van Egmond will bring that philosophy to IDS Vancouver with a feature installation exploring the relationship between design and the dynamic forces of nature. The project will use layered planting, biodiversity-focused design, and circular and upcycled materials to create an immersive landscape that changes over time — a living argument for gardens that work with the seasons rather than against them.