Landscaping in Stittsville: What a Bigger Lot Asks of a Landscaper

Stittsville ward had 40,889 residents at the 2021 census, and most of them have something the rest of urban Ottawa does not: a yard with real room in it. That is the appeal of landscaping in Stittsville, and it is also the catch. A bigger lot means more water to manage, more lawn to build soil under, more trees to plan around and more ways for a project to be done in the wrong order.

This guide covers what a landscaper actually does on a Stittsville property, from the front boulevard to the back fence, including the rules the City published this year and the small jobs, mulch and sod, that people ask us about most.

Landscaping company or lawn company?

The phrase “landscaping company” covers two different trades. One maintains yards: mowing, fertilising, spring clean-ups. The other builds them: grading, drainage, soil, sod, beds, planting, trees, lighting and the stone work that ties it together. We are the second kind, a landscape contractor, and most of this guide is about that kind of work. If your yard has never drained properly, the lawn has thinned out every year since the builder left, or the beds are an afterthought, maintenance will not fix it. Construction will.

Start with where the water goes

Every good Stittsville landscape starts with drainage, and the City has removed most of the guesswork about what you may do. Its Landscaping Education Guide, published in March 2026, says plainly: “You are not allowed to change the grading of a property.” All projects must follow the approved drainage pattern, and water cannot be directed onto a neighbour unless the approved plan says so.

Three things make that matter more here than elsewhere:

• Lot size. A large yard collects a lot of water. The low end of a Stittsville lot becomes a seasonal wetland when drainage is ignored, which is why we grade in zones and correct settled areas before anything is planted.
• Ditches. Where a Stittsville street drains to a roadside ditch instead of a curb and storm sewer, the ditch is part of the City’s stormwater system. The guide is direct: “Do not alter ditches.” If a driveway crosses one, the culvert under it has to be approved and built to City standards, and the property owner is responsible for maintaining it.
• Poole Creek. The Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority describes Upper Poole Creek as one of the few cold or cool water streams in the City of Ottawa. It rises in a Provincially Significant Wetland, flows north-east through the village and drains into the Carp River. Conservation authorities regulate development near watercourses and wetlands, and the City’s guide says that if a property is in a regulated area, approval is needed before work starts. If your yard backs onto the creek corridor or a wetland, check with the MVCA first.

If a grading plan exists for your lot, the guide says you can request a copy through the City’s access to building permit records service, or call 3-1-1 if there is none. We look at it before we draw anything.

Front yard landscaping in Stittsville

The front of the lot is where the City’s rules are tightest, and the 2026 guide spells them out:

• At least half the front lawn must be soft landscaping: plants, soil, lawn, mulch and other organic material. Artificial turf does not count. The City treats it as hard landscaping on private property and does not allow it in the right of way at all.
• Part of your front yard is the City’s. The right of way between the property line and the road varies in width and, in the guide’s words, “may be wider than you think.” The geoOttawa map shows approximately where it sits.
• In the right of way, the only hard landscaping allowed is a driveway and a walkway, and together they cannot exceed 50 per cent of the frontage. River rock, stones, boulders and raised decorative features are not allowed there.
• No trees or hedges in the right of way. Gardens are allowed there under the City’s boulevard gardening rules, which set height limits and ban raised beds.
• On corner lots, plants and containers inside the visibility triangle must stay under 0.75 m.

Inside those limits, a Stittsville front yard has more depth to work with than most, so the design can do more than line the foundation with shrubs. Layered beds that read from the street in March as well as June, a tree placed for its mature size, and a walkway that arrives at the door deliberately. Road salt and plough windrows decide what survives near the road, and we cover plant choices for that strip in front yard landscaping in Ottawa.

Backyard landscaping on a bigger lot

A large backyard fails in a different way than a small one. Instead of being cramped, it is shapeless: a patio against the house, a lawn running to the fence, nothing in between. The fix is to give the yard parts. A dining area near the kitchen door, a second destination further out, planting that screens the neighbours, and lawn sized to what you will actually use. How those zones get planned is the subject of landscape design in Stittsville and Kanata, and the built features, fire pits, outdoor kitchens and pergolas, are in outdoor living in Stittsville.

The softscape side of a big backyard comes down to three things.

Trees first. A new subdivision has almost no shade, and trees take years to matter, so they go in early. The City’s guide suggests evergreens on the north or west side of a house to block winter wind and leafy trees on the south and west for summer shade that still lets winter sun through, and says well-placed trees can cut home energy costs by 10 to 50 per cent. Its planting advice is at least 3 m from foundations with 1.5 m of unpaved space around the trunk. The City also strongly encourages native plants from Eastern Ontario, which suit the local climate, soil and pests.

Existing trees are protected, including your neighbour’s. Under the City’s Tree Protection By-law, a private tree of 30 cm or more in diameter on an urban lot of 1 hectare or less needs a permit to remove. The guide sets a critical root zone of 10 cm of radius for every 1 cm of trunk diameter, so a 40 cm maple has a 4 m zone. You cannot dig, regrade or run machinery inside it without approval from Forestry Services, and protection fencing at least 1.2 m high has to be up before work starts. On Stittsville’s older lots, with mature maple and pine along the lot lines, this shapes where beds, paths and patios can go.

Soil under everything. On the newer subdivisions the builder left a skin of topsoil over compacted clay fill, and no lawn or shrub thrives in it. We covered the repair in detail in softscaping in Stittsville and Barrhaven. On older lots, some still on septic, we confirm where the bed is before planning trees or heavy work over it.

One more rule, for anyone planning a water feature: the City requires an enclosure, and a pool enclosure permit, for any pond that holds more than 60 cm of water.

Mulch, done properly

Mulching is the most common small job we are asked about in Stittsville, and the one most often done badly.

How deep. About 5 to 8 cm over weeded, prepared soil. Thinner does not suppress weeds. Deeper starves roots of air.

How much. The arithmetic is simple. A cubic yard is 27 cubic feet, so at 3 inches it covers roughly 100 square feet, and at 2 inches roughly 160. Measure the beds, pick the depth and you have your order. On Stittsville-sized beds that almost always means bulk delivery, not bags.

Where not to put it. Never piled against a tree trunk or shrub stems, where it holds moisture against the bark and rots it. The mulch “volcano” around a tree is the single most common mistake we see. Keep it back from the house foundation too, and out of any swale, where the first heavy rain will float it into the low corner of the yard.

What it will not fix. Mulch over compacted clay is decoration. If shrubs are sitting in water every spring, the bed needs to be rebuilt so it drains, then mulched. It also needs an edge, whether a cut spade edge, steel or a paver border, or it migrates into the lawn within a season.

Mulch breaks down over two or three seasons. Top it back up to the same depth. Do not add a fresh full layer every spring until the bed becomes a mound.

Replacing a failed lawn

Sod replacement requests in Stittsville nearly always trace back to the same cause: grass rooted into a few centimetres of topsoil over clay, soggy in May and dormant by July. Laying new sod on the same ground buys one good season.

Done properly, the old turf comes off, the compacted layer is loosened and amended, low spots are graded out so the lawn falls the way the lot’s plan intends, real topsoil depth goes down, and fresh sod is laid and rolled the day it is cut. Timing matters: late April to early June, or late August to October. Ontario bans the sale and use of cosmetic pesticides, so a lawn here has to be healthy enough to out-compete weeds on its own, which is one more argument for getting the soil right.

Choosing a landscaper in Stittsville

Six questions sort the landscape contractors worth hiring from the rest:

1. Where does the water go now, and where will it go after? Anyone who quotes without walking the grades is pricing a guess.
2. Are you licensed for the stone work? Since March 1, 2026 the City of Ottawa has required a municipal business licence for any business installing patios, walkways, driveways, steps or retaining walls. Most landscaping projects include at least one. Ask to see it.
3. Who calls the locates? Provincial law requires a utility locate through Ontario One Call before any digging, even with a hand shovel.
4. What happens to the soil? Ask for the topsoil depth and amendment plan in writing. It is the biggest hidden difference between quotes.
5. What is the plant warranty? Nursery stock we supply carries a one-year warranty.
6. Is the price a fixed scope? A written scope with quantities, not a round number, is the only kind of quote you can compare.

The order it goes in

1. Drainage and grading corrections, working to the lot’s approved plan.
2. Tree protection fencing, then any removals that have permits.
3. Hardscape: patios, walkways, walls and edging. See interlocking in Stittsville and hardscaping in Stittsville.
4. Soil: decompaction, amendment and topsoil.
5. Trees and structural planting, then beds.
6. Sod, in a spring or fall window.
7. Mulch and lighting.

Reversing any of those steps means paying for something twice. Our guide to hardscape versus softscape explains why the stone goes first and how budgets usually divide.

Landscaping your Stittsville property

We build landscapes across Stittsville, from the village core to Jackson Trails, Fairwinds and Westwood, on a regular west-end rotation. The full scope is on our landscape construction page, the local detail on our Stittsville landscaping page, and the stone side on our Stittsville hardscaping page.

Book a free on-site estimate. We will walk the grades, look at the soil and the trees, and send a written, fixed-price scope for the yard you actually have.