Landscape Design and Build in Upper Mission, Kelowna

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Upscale Hillside Living Above the Lake

Upper Mission is one of Kelowna’s newer, more upscale hillside communities, climbing the benchlands above the original Mission district toward Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park. Neighbourhoods like Kettle Valley, The Ponds, and Copper Sky were built out on large executive lots specifically to capture sweeping views of Okanagan Lake, and that terrain shapes almost every outdoor project here. Grades can shift several metres from the street to the back property line, homes often sit on exposed rock or clay-heavy fill left over from hillside development, and many lots border natural grassland or forest edge rather than a neighbouring backyard. A patio, pool deck, or planting bed in Upper Mission has to work with that slope and that exposure, not fight it — which is exactly the kind of grading, retaining, and drainage-first thinking our design-build process is built around.

Outdoor Rooms Built Around the View

These are also, for the most part, larger and newer builds than what you’ll find lower in the Mission, which changes how homeowners think about their outdoor space. A quarter-acre-plus lot with a west-facing view over the lake is an invitation to build an outdoor room that earns its keep year-round — a stone patio and outdoor kitchen positioned to frame the sunset, a pondless water feature tucked into a retained slope, or a pool deck cut into the hillside so the water itself seems to disappear into the lake beyond it. We design each project around the specific view corridor, sun path, and grade of the lot, rather than a stock layout dropped onto a hillside.

We’re proud to bring the same design-and-build standard to homes throughout Kelowna and the surrounding area, including the hillside properties of Upper Mission. Browse our completed projects to see the level of craftsmanship and detail we bring to every backyard, then reach out and let’s talk about yours.

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Designing and Building for Upper Mission’s Climate and Terrain

Exposure, Soil, and Wildfire-Wise Planting

Upper Mission sits higher and more exposed than the valley floor below it, which means more direct sun, more wind off the lake, and thinner, rockier soil on many lots. Retaining walls do double duty here, holding back cut-and-fill slopes while carving out level patio, pool, and lawn areas on ground that would otherwise be unusable. On the properties that back onto grassland or the forest edge near Okanagan Mountain Park, we design with wildfire exposure in mind, using our FireSmart Defensive Landscaping approach to keep plant selection, mulch, and hardscape materials aligned with FireSmart BC principles close to the home. For plantings, we lean on Okanagan-hardy, drought-tolerant species suited to the region’s hardiness zone and long, dry summers, since irrigation efficiency matters more on an exposed hillside lot than it does in a sheltered valley yard.

Timing, Guidelines, and Drainage Planning

Timing matters too. Hillside sites can hold frost pockets or shed snow differently than lots down near the lakeshore, so we sequence excavation, retaining wall construction, and planting around the actual conditions of the site rather than a generic Okanagan calendar. And because many Upper Mission properties fall under community design guidelines set by their developer or strata, we plan hardscape footprint, retaining structure, and drainage routing early, before construction starts, so the finished yard meets both the site’s demands and the neighbourhood’s standards. Getting the drainage plan right the first time matters even more on a slope than it does on flat ground, since water that isn’t captured and redirected properly will find its way downhill through a retaining wall, a patio base, or a neighbour’s yard.