Home/Service areas/Ellicott City
Water, slope and history
Landscaping & tree care in Ellicott City
Ellicott City is built on a hillside above a river, and no landscape decision here is separable from what water does next.
Ellicott City's flooding history is not an abstraction to anyone who lives here. On these slopes, hard surface, grading and drainage are the whole design problem; the planting is the easy part. We would rather talk a client out of a large impermeable terrace at the top of a slope than build it and watch where it sends the water.
The older parts of town add a second constraint — historic fabric, stone walls that predate everybody, and sites where what you are really doing is repair rather than replacement. That is slower, hand-laid work and it should be priced honestly as such.
What we do in Ellicott City
Local rules worth knowing
What governs work in Ellicott City.
Slope, stormwater and the county
Howard County's Department of Inspections, Licenses and Permits handles building and grading permits, and grading on a sloped site is where a residential landscape project most often meets the permit system. Their permits line is 410-313-2455. Where a project reaches the Forest Conservation Act, the Department of Planning and Zoning requires an approved Forest Conservation Plan as a condition of development approval.
Ask any tree company for their licence number
Maryland requires commercial roadside tree work to be carried out under a Licensed Tree Expert, and a firm doing the physical work must have at least one on staff. The DNR Forest Service licenses LTEs on experience, education and an examination. Ours is #1798. It is a fair question to ask anyone quoting you tree work.
Regulations change. These notes summarise published guidance from the agencies named and are a starting point, not legal advice — we confirm the current position for your specific property before any permit-affecting work begins.
Questions we get asked in Ellicott City
Straight answers.
Can you build a patio on a steep Ellicott City lot?
Usually, but the retaining and the drainage behind it are the real job, and they are most of the cost. A terrace cut into a slope without drainage behind the wall is a wall that will move. Grading work on a sloped site may also need a county grading permit.
Will a new patio make flooding worse?
It can, if it replaces ground that used to absorb water and sends the runoff somewhere worse. On Ellicott City slopes we design the outfall before the surface, and sometimes recommend a smaller or more permeable terrace than the one originally asked for.
Nearby