about SVS Landscape Design

Hi, I’m Sarah.

The Pacific Northwest is my home and inspiration culturally, artistically, and ecologically.

I was born in the Seattle area and raised by a mom who baked her own bread, camped without a tent, and taught me the joys of building a roaring fire and feasting on red huckleberries.

Between these experiences and my mom’s landscaping company run from our home, my childhood was inextricably entwined with the plant world.

But it wasn’t until I started my first house plant with a cutting from home that I realized the love of plants was in my blood.

As an adult, I’ve gathered skills and experience in a range of environments that nurtured my love of people, plants and art.

I received my Bachelor of Arts Degrees in Visual Art and Ethnobotany from the University of Washington, including a quarter studying art in the city of Rome and a summer backpacking through Scandinavia.

After college I went on to work in arts higher education in Seattle and Philadelphia, where I realized that the center of my people/plants/art Venn Diagram was landscape design.

I returned to school to earn a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard in 2008.

My art and ethnobotany backgrounds taught me the importance of our connection to space and place, while my landscape architecture training informed a rigorously conceptual approach to design.

However, more than a decade of experience building and maintaining landscapes has taught me about the value of human labor, the pragmatic realities of budget and site constraints, and the (often gloriously unpredictable) roles time and change play in the landscape.

Straddling these disparate worlds informs a bold creative vision grounded in deep practicality.

Whether I’m watching a mason bee pollinate a vine maple flower or noting the new growth on a nurse log, I am filled with a sense of wonder at the ways plants and landscapes embrace change.

Nature is never static.

I love to share the joy of experiencing full cycles of life in a seasonally responsive landscape. Our living landscapes have a lot to teach us if we’re ready to listen.

Sarah Van Sanden, Owner and Lead Designer

206.403.8140 | sarah@svslandscapedesign.com