Ecorhythm Landscape Designs
Where nature, design, and everyday life come together.
Ecorhythm Landscape Designs is a residential landscape design studio serving Vancouver, Washington, Clark County, Cowlitz County, and the greater Portland, Oregon area. Founded by landscape designer Whitney Salas, the studio creates thoughtful outdoor environments that balance natural beauty, modern design, and the practical realities of everyday life.
Whitney’s approach to landscape design is rooted in an unusual combination of biology, botany, art, field experience, and landscape design. The result is a perspective that considers not only how a landscape looks, but how it grows, functions, flows, and feels over time.
Meet Whitney Salas
For Whitney, a connection to the natural world began early.
Born in Alaska and later spending ten years on the East Coast, she experienced landscapes ranging from the wild and expansive to the densely urban. But it was moving to the Pacific Northwest in 2001 that ultimately shaped her relationship with landscape and design.
The scale of the forests, massive trees, lush understory, and incredible diversity of plant life immediately resonated with her. Hiking, backpacking, camping, and simply spending time in the woods became an important part of her life—and the textures, forms, patterns, and rhythms found there continue to influence her work today.
Whitney earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biology with a focus in Botany from Portland State University, followed by two years of formal Landscape Design education at Portland Community College.
Her scientific work included microbiology and field biology, where she studied plant phenology, diversity, and productivity in relation to climate, land use, and invasive species. She also worked directly with the identification and characterization of local flora.
But the highly controlled environment of a laboratory never felt like the final destination.
A lifelong interest in painting, drawing, ceramics, architecture, and visual composition offered another path. Landscape design became the place where those two worlds could meet: science and creativity, plants and architecture, ecology and everyday life.
Today, Whitney brings eight years of landscape industry experience to Ecorhythm, including hands-on landscape installation as well as six years of landscape design and project management.
BACKGROUND + EXPERTISE
BIOLOGY + BOTANY
B.S. Biology, Botany Focus — PSU
LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Formal Landscape Design education — PCC
8 YEARS INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE
Design, project management + installation
FIELD BIOLOGY
Pacific Northwest flora, plant ecology + environmental research
A Landscape Design Philosophy Rooted in Place
A successful landscape begins with understanding the site.
Before thinking about individual plants or finishes, Whitney looks at the property as a complete environment: its architecture, solar exposure, grade, drainage and stormwater movement, existing vegetation, views, circulation, and relationship to the surrounding landscape.
Just as importantly, she considers the people who will live there.
How do you move through the property? Where do you naturally gather? Do you entertain outside? Garden? Have children or pets? Is privacy important? How much maintenance realistically fits your lifestyle? What should you see when you look through the windows of your home?
These questions shape the design.
Rather than imposing a predetermined aesthetic, Ecorhythm takes a collaborative, client-led approach to residential landscape design. Whitney brings professional guidance, horticultural knowledge, and a strong design perspective to the process while making space for the client's own ideas, needs, and vision.
The goal is not simply to make a property look better. It is to create an outdoor environment that genuinely works better.
Modern Meets Natural
Ecorhythm’s aesthetic lives at the intersection of modern and contemporary landscape design and the organic character of the Pacific Northwest.
Clean lines can sit alongside loose, textural planting. Architectural materials can contrast with native and regionally appropriate plants. Structured spaces can transition into areas that feel softer and more natural.
Whitney draws inspiration from architecture and gardens around the world, contemporary landscape designers, abstract and realist art, construction materials, urban environments, and the forests and landscapes of the Pacific Northwest.
Underlying it all is one of the most important principles behind Ecorhythm: rhythm.
Lines create movement. Repetition creates continuity. Plantings soften architecture. Pathways establish circulation. Open spaces provide pause. Each element has a relationship to what comes before and after it.
The result should feel cohesive rather than decorated.
Beautiful. Functional. Thoughtful.
Every property presents a different set of opportunities and constraints. A beautiful landscape still needs to manage water appropriately, accommodate the realities of the site, provide comfortable circulation, address privacy, and function for the people who use it.
Ecorhythm considers these practical elements from the beginning, integrating planting design, hardscape planning, circulation, site grading, stormwater considerations, outdoor living, privacy, curb appeal, and maintenance into a unified landscape plan.
For Whitney, good design is ultimately about finding the balance between form and function, structure and nature, creativity and practicality.
The finished landscape should feel beautiful, but it should also feel inevitable—as though the home, garden, and surrounding environment were always meant to belong together.
Ecorhythm provides residential landscape design services throughout Vancouver, WA, Clark and Cowlitz Counties, and the greater Portland, OR region.
