The trade and the process

Membership is a paid trade association membership, not a licence and not a competency test — the directory itself publishes no qualification or insurance requirement. Treat it as a shortlist generator, then verify licences separately through Building and Energy and ask for a current certificate of currency for public liability.

Institute membership carries no statutory weight. Ask any designer on this list for three completed Perth gardens you can look at, and for a documented job you can read — a plan you cannot build from is worth nothing at any price.

Applications for both 2026 semesters were closed when checked on 2 August 2026, so this is a plan for next year rather than next month. Confirm current fees and intake dates directly with the delivering TAFE.

This is a lead-generation referral site, not an independent cost authority — it states outright that it does not perform landscaping work and refers enquiries to contractors, so the figures are marketing-adjacent and undated beyond the year. Use them to sanity-check the shape of a quote, never as evidence in a price negotiation. Three written quotes from Perth businesses on your own scope beat any published guide.

Registration and permits are two separate questions and this page is mostly about the first. Whether your specific structure needs a building permit is decided by your local government, so confirm it with them before you commit to a design.

Local governments administer the R-Codes and many have local planning policies that vary them. The document tells you what questions to ask; your council tells you the answer for your lot.

The plans show what the asset owners have recorded. They are not a substitute for hand-digging or a cable locator near a marked service, and they will not show private runs installed by a previous owner — old power to a shed, a bore line, an abandoned soakwell.

The exemption starts on the day the lawn or garden goes in, not the day you apply, so a late application just shortens it. Random inspections occur and breaching the conditions risks a $500 fine.

These are work health and safety duties on a person conducting a business or undertaking. Cutting pavers on your own block does not make you a PCBU, but the dust is identical and silicosis is irreversible — use the same water suppression, on-tool extraction and respiratory protection the guidance describes.

The project spans housing, energy and water-sensitive design as well as landscape. Take the landscape, water and soil material; the building fabric content is background.

The page was last updated 25 September 2025. Read the linked PDF rather than the summary page — the exclusion list is only in the PDF.

Exemption from occupational licensing is not exemption from a building permit. A retaining wall or patio can still need a permit from your local government even though no registered builder is required. Note also that the previous version of Form 75 was only accepted until 31 May 2026.

Written around new-home construction, so the sample progress stages (slab, plate height, roof cover) do not map onto a garden. The deposit cap, the genuine-payment rule and the inspection right do.

A household budget tool, not a construction estimating tool. It tells you what you can afford; it says nothing about what the work costs. Phase 7 does the second half.

Written for river restoration and citizen science, so it assumes star pickets, GPS coordinates and a site nobody owns. On a 600 square metre block you do not need any of that — the transferable parts are the fixed position, the fixed aiming point, the fixed camera height, the one lens, and the field sheet that records all of it.

The page refers to the regulator by its current departmental initials, which have changed more than once in recent years — the function is Building and Energy either way. Thresholds are set in legislation and do get amended, so confirm the current figures on this page on the day you sign rather than trusting a number you read months earlier.

Free alternative: you were given a copy of the title in your settlement paperwork when you bought the house, so check that first. Buy a fresh one if the settlement pack is missing, if the property has changed hands or been subdivided since, or if you simply cannot find it. Landgate fees are regulated and rise with CPI each year, so confirm the current price at checkout.

Indicative means the drawing shows roughly where an asset was meant to go, not where it is. In Perth the private side of the boundary — retic mainline, pool plumbing, conduit to a shed, unregistered power to a pergola — is on nobody's plan at all. Phase 3 covers proving it on the ground.

The project covers building fabric, energy and water as well as landscape, so skim past the parts that are not about the garden.