Scottsdale + 13 towns and areas
Landscaping Service Areas Around Scottsdale, AZ
The landscaping service area is Scottsdale plus 13 places in and around it, each with its own water supply, lot sizes and yard rules. Cross a city limit and the rules change.
In Scottsdale
- North ScottsdaleNorth Scottsdale is where the lot line, the HOA committee and the natural area open space line all get a vote before a shovel does.
- Old Town ScottsdaleLandscaping in Old Town Scottsdale means older ranch lots, historic district guidelines on some streets, and city rules on walls and water.
Desert foothills
Hillside towns
Valley cities
- TempeTempe is 39.9 square miles and home to ASU, and many single family yards sit on a tight grid instead of a wide lot.
- MesaMesa covers 138.7 square miles, and some of the older blocks were laid out when flood irrigation made a wide lawn cheap to keep.
- PhoenixPhoenix stretches across 518 square miles, and the yard rules change with the zoning district you live in.
- GlendaleLandscaping in Glendale, AZ comes down to water: the city pays to swap grass for xeriscape, many downtown lots still get SRP irrigation, and the code limits front yard walls to 3 feet.
- GilbertGilbert incorporated in 1920, was known as the Hay Capital of the World until the late 1920s, and annexed 53 square miles of county land in the 1970s, when the population was still 1,971 (Town of Gilbert, history (opens in a new tab)).
- ChandlerChandler went from 3,800 residents in 1950 to 278,748 in 2025, and it has added about 1 percent since the 2020 census, so most landscaping work here is a retrofit rather than a new build (Census QuickFacts, Chandler (opens in a new tab)).
- PeoriaPeoria runs from a grid of old streets around Grand Avenue to master planned ground off the Loop 303, and the same yard plan does not work in both places.
Service area
Which cities and towns are covered?
Scottsdale, then Old Town Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Fountain Hills, Cave Creek, Carefree, North Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria, Gilbert and Chandler. North Scottsdale and Old Town are parts of Scottsdale rather than separate cities, and each gets its own page because the water source, the lot sizes and the design review are all different from one end of the city to the other. The list runs from small towns of a few thousand people to Phoenix at 518 square miles, and the work changes at every border. If an address sits just outside one of these places, ask anyway rather than assume. The towns around it are not satellites of Scottsdale either, they are separate jurisdictions with their own counters, and the valley cities on the list, from Tempe to Chandler, are bigger than most people expect from a suburb.
Water
How does the water provider change from town to town?
Completely, and it changes the irrigation design. Scottsdale Water serves the city with about 90 percent surface water from the Central Arizona Project and the Salt River Project, and SRP water is limited to on project land south of the Arizona Canal. Paradise Valley has 4 providers depending on the address: Berneil Water Company, Phoenix, Scottsdale and EPCOR (Paradise Valley, utility services (opens in a new tab)). Fountain Hills is served by EPCOR's Chaparral District. Cave Creek runs its own utility on about 95 percent CAP water, and some properties outside it draw from private wells. Carefree Water Company blends CAP with groundwater. Tempe gets about 87 percent of its supply from SRP in a typical year (City of Tempe, water resiliency and drought preparedness (opens in a new tab)). That matters because a drip schedule written for one system can be wrong on the other side of a street, and because rebate programs and drought rules are administered per utility rather than per county.
Ground
Why does the soil change the work across the valley?
Because the parent material changes. Caliche is a layer cemented by calcium carbonate that restricts roots and drainage, and it appears in some parts of the valley and not others, so the planting hole is tested rather than assumed (University of Arizona, managing caliche (opens in a new tab)). The foothills towns are a different problem: Fountain Hills and Carefree have granite and decomposed granite on many lots, with boulders that a site plan is expected to route around rather than remove. Hillside lots in Paradise Valley and Carefree add slope, which turns drainage into engineering. On flat ground in Tempe or Mesa the constraint can be an old root system or a shallow layer of fill rather than rock. The test is cheap either way: a hole, a bucket of water, and 4 hours later the answer is visible in the bottom of the hole.
Rules
Which towns have the strictest rules for a yard?
There are 4 that stand out, for different reasons. Cave Creek requires a 12 foot native habitat corridor measured inward from every property line on a Desert Rural lot, left undisturbed and planted with natives (Cave Creek, residential zones (opens in a new tab)). Paradise Valley's hillside rules call for native desert vegetation to be preserved to the maximum extent reasonably possible and cap retaining walls at 8 feet there (Town of Paradise Valley, Article XXII, Hillside Development Regulations (opens in a new tab)). Carefree caps lot coverage at 6 percent in its largest-lot zone and requires tall retaining walls to be terraced. North Scottsdale carries the Environmentally Sensitive Lands overlay, where land designated as natural area open space is permanently maintained as open space (City of Scottsdale, ESL single-family plan requirements (opens in a new tab)). The pattern is that the smaller and higher the town, the more the rules protect what is already growing there rather than what a homeowner wants to add.
Service area
Which areas have the biggest and smallest yards?
The range is enormous across the service area. Paradise Valley is mostly zoned R-43, one acre minimum, with an R-175 zone at 4 acres. Cave Creek runs from 190,000 square foot lots down to 18,000, and Carefree from 190,000 down to 10,000. North Scottsdale's DC Ranch is split into 4 residential villages, so lot sizes vary by village rather than by city. Tempe is landlocked at 39.9 square miles around the Arizona State University campus, so single family yards sit in a tight street grid. Phoenix spans both ends at once: R1-6 zoning allows up to 5.5 homes per acre, while RE-43 requires a lot of at least an acre. A design that works on an acre lot in Paradise Valley is not the same design that fits a small lot in Tempe, even with the same budget and the same plant palette.
Climate
Does elevation change what can be planted?
It changes the margins, which is where plants live or die. Carefree, Cave Creek and Fountain Hills sit higher than Phoenix and central Scottsdale, and the higher towns can run cooler at night, which can bring colder winter lows and limit cold-tender plants. The difference can show up in the last frost date and in how much heat a west facing wall holds into the evening. Yards with the same plant list can perform differently on that basis alone. A citrus tree that survives in a sheltered central Scottsdale yard may not survive a colder night in Carefree, and the difference is not the summer heat but the winter low.
Service area
How do I know which page applies to my address?
Use the city or town limit, not the mailing address or the school district. A Scottsdale mailing address can belong to Paradise Valley or to an unincorporated pocket, and the permit counter follows the jurisdiction, not the post office. If the property is close to a border, the water provider bill is the fastest confirmation: Scottsdale Water, EPCOR, Phoenix Water, Tempe, Mesa and Carefree Water Company each look different on a statement. When in doubt, send the address with the request.
4 questions
Questions people ask
Still have a question? Call (747) 243-2089 and describe the yard.
Are all 14 places covered?
Yes, Scottsdale plus Old Town Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Fountain Hills, Cave Creek, Carefree, North Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Phoenix, Glendale, Peoria, Gilbert and Chandler. Each has a page with its local notes. If the property is on a border, say so in the message and the right jurisdiction gets confirmed.
My address says Scottsdale but I am in another town. Which page applies?
The jurisdiction applies, not the mailing address. Paradise Valley and parts of unincorporated Maricopa County use Scottsdale mailing addresses. Check the water bill or the city website. The water bill, the property tax notice and the city website all name the jurisdiction, and any one of them settles it.
Does the permit counter change the price?
It changes the timeline and adds a review cost. Every retaining wall in Scottsdale needs engineered plans, Cave Creek requires zoning clearance for a wall over 4 feet, and Carefree requires tall retaining walls to be terraced. The wall itself can cost about the same to build in either place, but the review step adds both money and calendar.
Is the area outside these 14 places covered?
Send the address with the request. The answer depends on the location and the size of the job.
Keep reading
- Landscaping Cost: for the cost ranges that apply across the area.
- Services: for what is built in each town.
- North Scottsdale: for the ESL and HOA rules that apply in the northern part of the city.
- Paradise Valley: for the 4 water providers and the hillside code.
- Old Town Scottsdale: for historic district front yards.
- Glendale: for the xeriscape rebate and flood irrigation downtown.
- Peoria: for the West Valley north of Glendale.
- Gilbert: for East Valley lots and the town's water rules.
- Chandler: for the city south of Tempe and west of Gilbert.
- Contact: to confirm an address.
