Landscape construction isn't a licensed trade in the ACT. Access Canberra's construction licences cover builders, electricians, plumbers, drainers and gasfitters, building surveyors and a few related assessor, certifier and gas roles, and in March 2025 The Landscape Association, which represents landscapers in the ACT and NSW, told Region Canberra that licensing was the top issue for its ACT members. The ACT Government is exploring licences for more trades, including brick and block laying, concreting and carpentry, though landscape construction isn't on its list, and it says no changes are expected before 2027. If you hold an ACT builder licence, read the Act's rules on advertising a licensed service before your site goes live; our page for Canberra tradies sets them out. Over the border, NSW licenses structural landscaping: walls, paving, fences, decks and pergolas on a residential job worth more than five thousand dollars need a contractor licence, as our Sydney landscapers page explains.
Retaining walls come up on most sloping blocks, and the ACT sets out when one is exempt. For development approval, a cut-in wall can be up to 1.2 m and a fill wall up to 1 m above datum ground level on its lower side, but only 0.4 m between the front boundary and the building line or within 1.5 m of a side or rear boundary, and a wall that both cuts and fills has to meet both sets of limits. For building approval, a wall up to 1.2 m, measured from the top of the wall to the lowest ground beside it, is exempt; one up to 1.5 m can be, if it complies with the exempt building code and the building code. Past those limits the wall needs approval. Your site doesn't have to repeat the numbers. A sentence saying you check each wall against them before you quote, linked to the ACT Planning page, tells an owner the question has been asked.
Trees are covered by the Urban Forest Act 2023, which replaced the Tree Protection Act on 1 January 2024. Every tree on public land is protected, street trees included, and so is a tree on a private block that is 8 m or taller, has a canopy 8 m wide, or has a trunk at least 1 m around at 1.4 m above the ground. Its tree protection zone takes in the ground under the canopy, a 2 m band beyond the canopy's edge and a 4 m band around the trunk. City Services lists groundwork in that zone that needs approval, such as digging more than 10 cm deep over 4 square metres or more, raising the soil by more than 10 cm over the same area, compacting a tenth or more of the zone or cutting roots thicker than 50 mm. That approval comes through a tree activity application, which the owner or someone acting for them can lodge, or, on a development or building application, through the tree management plan lodged with it. For a homeowner, an approved removal usually comes with an obligation to plant two new trees on the block for each protected tree removed, or pay a contribution for each one not replanted.
New houses carry living infrastructure rules. The ACT's Planning (Residential Zones) Technical Specifications 2026, in force from 1 July 2026, set out a planting area for a single dwelling of 15% of a compact block, 20% of a mid-sized block and 30% of a large block, counted only in pieces at least 2.5 m wide, with no artificial turf, and with retaining walls, rainwater tanks, hot water systems and heating or cooling units kept out of it. Tree numbers follow block size, from one small tree on a compact block to a small and a medium tree on a large block up to 800 m², and more beyond that. A small tree goes in from at least a 45 litre pot and a medium or large one from 75 litres, except eucalypts, which are capped at 45 litres. The nature strip has rules of its own. City Services says the resident or lessee of the block beside it maintains it, and that groundcovers, native grasses and shrubs up to 50 cm (20 cm in a bushfire prone area), organic mulch, edging up to 15 cm and compacted gravel over up to half the strip, clear of tree drip lines, need no approval. Irrigation needs a Nature Strip Development application with a site plan drawn to scale, while the July 2025 guidelines list synthetic turf, pavers, retaining walls, boulders and new trees as unlikely to be approved. Residents can't plant, prune or remove a street tree. With no local councils in the ACT, these rules are the same in every suburb.
Icon Water's Permanent Water Conservation Measures apply in Canberra and Queanbeyan and are enforceable. From 1 September to 31 May, sprinklers and irrigation, drip systems included, may only run before 9am or after 6pm; hand watering with a trigger nozzle is allowed at any time; in winter, any method is fine at any hour, so long as nothing pools or runs off. The Bureau of Meteorology's figures for Canberra Airport from 2008 to 2026 average 58.8 days a year at or below zero, 6.5 of them in September, and about 10 days a year at 35°C or above. The ACT Government's Canberra Plant Selector filters plants by frost tolerance, watering need and fire retardance, and its climate-wise landscape guide, Gawari Ngilanmanyin, is worth a link from a native garden page. We're an Adelaide team and work with Canberra landscapers by phone and email. We haven't built for an ACT business yet; our current clients are in SA, NSW, VIC and QLD.
