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The landscaping industry in the United States refers to the companies that provide a broad range of service lines within their areas of expertise and job positions, such as –
States having the largest numbers of landscaping companies are Florida (8,758), California (8,288), and New York (6,958).
The estimated worth of the landscaping industry in the United States is $105.1bn.
In 2019, the total revenue generated by the industry was over 99 billion U.S. dollars, with an average cost of $503 per household spent on lawn care and gardening activities.
The revenue performance of the landscaping industry in the U.S. over the last six years, has grown to $69.8 .
Moreover, the growth of the industry is projected to be around 10% from 2019 to 2029. The projected growth is to be driven in part, based on the increase in the number of aging citizens in the country.
The most profitable service in the landscaping industry
Landscape maintenance is the service contributing most to the overall growth of the landscaping industry, for instance, nearly 32% percent of companies in the landscaping business reported landscape maintenance as their fastest growing service area by revenue over 2017.
That said, landscape maintenance is cited to be the most profitable business in the landscaping industry. Other services, like landscaping design and building services, accounted for considerable growth in revenue earning. Moreover, 13% of the businesses reported their revenue earnings from lawn care and chemical application services.
The landscaping industry offers employment to more than 1 million people.
The landscaping service businesses represented by the industry in the United States revolve around 615,458 as of 2021.
The landscaping services industry grew in numbers by 5.3% on average over the last five years between 2016-2021. The most noticeable thing about the landscaping industry in the United States is that it is labor-intensive businesses that depend more on labor than capital.
Increasing demand for residential outdoor landscaping is a major shift that models the existing landscaping industry in the United States.
Experts believe that this shift signals the resurrection of the industry after it was affected badly during the economic recession. The increase in the demand for residential outdoor landscaping is from younger households across the U.S.
The report by the National Gardening Survey 2018 reveals a significant rise from USD 317 in 2014 to USD 503 in 2017 in the average spending per household on lawn care and gardening activities.
The demand for landscaping services also rose because of gardening activities that increased due to the need for self-sufficiency in growing indoor fruits and vegetables followed by the rising health consciousness of younger generation households.
According to the American Society of Landscape Architects, 83.3% of the consumers went for indigenous plants in 2018.
The report by the National Gardening Survey 2018 revealed that the total sales of lawn and garden retail outlets in the country rose to USD 47.8 billion, in 2014.
The survey signals the potential rise of demand for residential outdoor landscape maintenance in the U.S. among younger consumers that would also serve as a growth engine for the landscaping industry in the country.
Top landscaping companies are focusing on capitalizing on the emerging demand trends in the industry, followed by small domestic and regional players, constituting thus a rigid competition in the marketplace.
For example, BrightView is attempting to boost its outreach across the United States with expanded services and for this, it has acquired a South-Carolina-based commercial landscaping company. Summit Landscape Group, LLC.
Lawn & Landscape reports that California tops on chart for having the largest number of landscaping companies with 14 players in 2019.
One of the factors responsible for crippling the growth of the landscaping industry in the U.S. is the lack of efficient and quality labor, according to 82% of the company leaders, not to mention the unfulfilled vacancy of 71,000 jobs in the industry in 2017.
Given the shortage of quality labor in the landscaping industry, the NALP brought forward the Landscape Management Apprenticeship Program, in collaboration with the United States Department of Labor in February 2019.
The purpose of the program was to raise awareness among workers to take up the training to solve the issue of shortage of labor that the industry was going through.
A report by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the numbers of landscaping and grounds-keeping workers falling to 912,660 in 2019 from 913,480 in 2018.
The Covid-19 pandemic ravaged virtually all the industries in the United States, including the landscaping industry that witnessed most of the landscaping projects being postponed indefinitely due to Covid-induced measures enforced to contain the viral outbreak.
Now, some landscaping projects earlier postponed due to the pandemic could be cleared for Spring, thereby paving the path for landscaping opportunities around the end of Q1.
The professionals in the commercial landscaping and construction industry will experience huge opportunities for growth, as federal governments would grant assistance to many new infrastructure projects as part of stimulus programs.
In this context, New York’s Nassau County has already submitted a proposal worth $583 million intended to create nearly 3300 jobs.
The growth of the landscaping services market in the United States is expected to increase by a CAGR of 6.80%, based on the forecast period (2021 to 2028).
One of the factors responsible for boosting the growth of the market is outsourcing landscaping services to some third-party businesses, especially those companies specializing in the improvement of the corporate campus environment.
Another factor supporting the growth of the landscaping services market is increased spending on the construction of personal non resident entities.
Also, the income growth within the country is one of the other reasons for supporting the industry’s market growth.
The US Landscaping Services Market report provides a holistic analysis of the country’s landscaping services market in terms of value followed by segments and end-users.
The report states that the growth of the market is to increase by USD 132.6 billion in 2025.
Moreover, you will read a comprehensive analysis of key segments, drivers, trends, and other factors that play out a substantial role in the landscaping services market in the report.
One of the other reasons for driving the growth of the landscaping industry is the growing inclination of younger households in the country toward gardening and lawn care activities under landscape maintenance.
The millennial consumers across the United States are prioritizing health and hygiene. They prefer to be self-reliant in food and vegetable gardening activities in their yards and compounds.
The trend is signaling a paradigm shift within the country’s landscaping industry after the people have gone through the economic recession.
A factor that is said to halt the growth of the landscaping services market in the U.S. is the shortage of qualified labor, aside from fluctuations in fuel prices, and the seasonal nature of the landscaping industry.
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected countless businesses across the United States.
The brick-and-mortar businesses that work indoors, such as restaurants, dentists, and spas are currently on the front lines of the pandemic battle, while some of them have already lost their business to the viral outbreak.
Even though the Covid-induced measures are slowly being lifted and the markets are coming back to normal, every sector of every industry in the country is under the awe of the pandemic's terrible impacts, including the landscaping industry that’s worth $82 billion.
To assess the challenges faced by landscaping businesses due to the Covid-19 pandemic from a business perspective, we can say that the viral outbreak has affected companies of all sizes and revenue strength.
Some business owners tend to believe that the landscaping industry is facing an extinction-level crisis. If the pandemic continues to last more days and months, it would sound like a death knell for their business.
How long the pandemic will affect the industry is based on the length of the preventive measures and restrictions that are currently in effect, including “Stay-at-home” orders.
Moreover, the Green industry, or lawn care and landscaping sectors have suffered a mild impact from the pandemic last year, based on this report by Jobber.
The most conspicuous challenge faced by the industry is the shortage of qualified labor that will continue to affect the home service category.
Most of the landscape business owners think that they will utilize their learning experience from 2020 to move forward with cautious optimism.
Some also believe that the only thing the landscape business owners can embrace is the uncertainty of the pandemic to protect the health and safety of their team and clients.
Some of the ways that the landscape companies follow to handle their business during the pandemic are; conducting business virtually when possible, retaining key employees, extending communications to customers, recommending safety guidelines, ensuring contactless deliveries and pickups, setting up online or remote ordering solutions, and advertising and marketing continuously.
The job market in the landscaping industry is expected to grow by 11.4% between 2016 to 2026.
There are currently about 178,300 landscapers in the country.
What is the status of employability of landscapers in the United States?
Based on the report by CareerExplorer, in the next 10 years, there will be a demand for 26,300 landscapers in the country. The projected number is based on 20,300 additional landscapers, and the retirement of 6,000 existing landscapers, as the report reveals.
Several factors impact the number of job opportunities in the landscaping industry, including local real estate and construction markets that influence the demand for landscapers.
In addition, a healthy economic condition of the nation due to thriving construction and increasing real estate sales pronounce growth for the landscapers who are trained and skilled in garden design, site planning, and installation of lawn sprinkler systems.
For the landscaping industry to grow substantially, the country must address economic downturns that conversely account for less employment for the talented landscapers.
Some other factors responsible for job growth in the landscaping industry are increased public interest in environmental issues, desire for well-maintained outdoor spaces, and growing concerns of homeowners for the safety of their gardens and yards that they can’t manage by themselves due to lack of time.
The job condition is fairly good in the locations with temperate climates, considering landscaping is conducted all through the year in such areas.
A large number of historians focused on the evolution of public infrastructure in the United States that standardized the status of living of people and boosted the economic growth of the nation.
Among these developments, the emergence of landscaping or green infrastructure has been of special interest in the country, as it provided urban Americans the breathing space and distinct identity of being home to the world’s one of the best landscape architecture businesses.
In the American context, the Birkenhead Park and the Victoria Park in Liverpool created by Sir Humphry Repton are said to have greatly influenced the landscape architecture in America.
Later it was none other than the “Father of American Landscape Architecture” Frederick Law Olmsted who institutionalized the styles of American landscape architectures, including Central Park in New York and the U.S. Capitol Grounds. He was the one who popularized the concept of functional, well-designed parks equipped with an assortment of green pastures among the city buildings.
A group known as the American Society of Landscape Architects was founded by Frederick, in 1899, that represented a larger number of architects based in the country.
Frederick’s profound aesthetic led to the incorporation of sweeping lawns into a building design that later influenced city planning in Chicago and Cleveland.
In due course of time, American landscaping evolved into urban and suburban landscapes.
When the people’s inclination towards improved, organized green space grew irresistibly, it led to the development of increasingly evolved outdoor landscaping, gardens, and living spaces.
Most of the landscape design today incorporates increasingly evolved trends consisting of courtyards, terraces, gardens, and green rooftops.
The individual state governments regulate landscape architecture in America.
For someone (landscape architect) who wants to obtain licensure in the country, he must have advanced education and work experience.
Moreover, the architect should have passed the Landscape Architect Registration Examination (L.A.R.E.).
To pass this sort of examination is mandatory as enforced by several states in the country. Sanctioning licensing for landscape architecture is monitored at the state level. On a national level, it is overseen by the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB).
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, landscape architecture has been an above-average growth profession in the country. The American Society of Landscape Architects is the national trade association for landscape architects in the United States.
The landscaping services industry in America is in recovery mode from the last period of devastating setbacks caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In view of the country’s economic activity rebounding and people returning to workplaces, there will be positive changes to experience in the market for businesses and the need to pay for professional landscape maintenance.
On further analysis of the current market situation in the U.S., we gather that this is going to be positively stronger for the residential housing market because of a growing number of consumers for the industry services.
With a larger population aging across the nation, there are going to be positive changes for growth in the industry, as elderly citizens are inclined to hire professional landscapers to maintain their yards. This means increasing demand for professional landscapers that would conversely pronounce an estimated revenue growth in the industry over the next five years.
The landscaping services market is fragmented.
Therefore, its growth relies on how the market vendors utilize the opportunities in the fast-growing segments, without losing their footprints on the slow-growing segments.
Innovations in landscaping practices have played a key role in spearheading the growth of the market. However, the dependence of the market on seasonal factors might be a potential reason to decelerate its growth. Moreover, the industry’s growth might also be affected by some other factors, including high competition among businesses and low barriers to entry.
What sets the industry on its growth trajectory is an increased demand for maintenance services from residential construction that includes multifamily structures consisting of apartment buildings.
They are the factors aiming to accelerate the growth of the landscaping industry in the future.
It largely depends on the rising value of residential construction, including expenses made on home improvements and increased consciousness towards tree and garden care.
If the value of residential construction is increased, it would be a harbinger of potential growth for landscaping industry in the U.S.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a death blow to the business of most industries, including the lawn care and landscaping industry in the United States. Though the pandemic didn’t damage all outdoor work, it did affect the landscaping services, as people had less money available to hire such services.
The report forecasts the potential growth in the landscaping industry in the future based on the premise that the country is undergoing an economic revival and individuals and businesses will have money and resources to spend on gardening services.
Moreover, the growth of the industry is based on two factors; the aging population would require services for their gardens, and younger households are increasingly inclined toward paying for landscaping and maintenance services for their gardens.
The main thing about the industry is that there are many smaller businesses than big brands in it, thus helping a new business to fit in the growing competition of the industry. Lack of skilled labor is one of the biggest challenges that the industry faces, and it also affects franchise opportunities in the market.
The franchise opportunities in the landscaping industry involve services, such as pest control, clearing snow, and installing and maintaining sprinkler systems. While some of these services are based on seasonal factors, a lot of them benefit the businesses to remain active all through the year, irrespective of seasonal changes.
One of the benefits of working with franchise opportunities is leveraging the most profitable niche of the landscaping market and finding employees to learn the fundamentals of landscaping, not to mention the advantage of working with a vast network of industry experts growing up under their guidance and expertise.
As a trade association, the National Association of Landscape Professionals represents about one million landscape industry professionals in the U.S. and other countries. Companies associated with the organization are experts in landscape design and installation, lawn care, tree care, landscape maintenance, irrigation and water management, etc.
Members of this association range from students to state associations, industry suppliers, and affiliate members. Its mission is to assist the member companies in achieving success through learning and training. With the help of certification and accreditation, the association is advancing the scope of professionalism for its members.
Founded in 1899, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) operates as a professional association for landscape architects in the United States. The association advocates an industry of more than 15,000 members. Areas led by the association include planning, design, and stewardship of safe, healthy, and robust environments. The mission of the association is to represent landscape architects through communication, advocacy, education, and fellowship.
The American Society of Consulting Arborists represents authoritative experts on trees called consulting arborists. It is committed to the mission to ensure the safety, health, and preservation of trees. The members associated with the foundation have profound knowledge and experience, thus qualifying them to become more popular among consumers and professionals, including other arborists.
The International Society of Arboriculture is a non-profit organization, endorsing the professional practice of arboriculture. It promotes arboriculture’s practice through research, technology, and education. The mission of the association is to raise awareness among professionals, public officials, and global consumers to acknowledge the values of economic, environmental, and societal benefits associated with trees, and ensure their preservation at a cost demonstrative of apt stewardship of resources. The association is on a path to communicating its mission and guiding principles to diverse audiences.
The tree care industry association was founded in 1938 as the National Arborist Association, representing more than 2,300 tree care firms and affiliated companies. Its mission is to develop standards of tree care practice and management, safety and education programs, training, conferences, and publications to make sure that message regarding the safe and appropriate practice of tree care is promoted effectively.
The Association of Professional Landscape Designers is mission-driven in the field of promoting the profession of landscape design, ensuring that the landscape designers get due recognition as qualified and dedicated professionals. There are several benefits meted out to the members of the association who support its core mission through volunteer efforts. Members are also encouraged to follow the code of professional standards and keep abreast with modern developments and trends throughout the field of landscape designs.
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect. He was also a public administrator, social critic, and journalist. Olmsted was born in Hartford, the capital city of Connecticut, on April 26, 1822. He is accredited to have laid the foundation of landscape architecture in the United States. He is also addressed as the father of American landscape architecture. In his initial days, he enjoyed a riveting career in journalism, visited public gardens in England in 1850, and witnessed the impressive Birkenhead Park designed by Sir Joseph Paxton.
Olmsted was a friend of famous American landscape architect, Andrew Jackson Downing, who introduced Olmsted to the English-born architect Calvert Vaux. Both Olmsted and Vaux worked on New York City's Central Park competing against Egbert Ludovicus Viele and some others. Central Park was declared as the winning design in 1858.
The park casts an impression of Frederick’s social awareness and adherence to egalitarian principles.
Later, Vaux and Olmsted formed Olmsted, Vaux & Co. in 1865, they designed different landscape projects, such as Prospect Park, Chicago's Riverside parks, Buffalo, and Niagara Falls State Park,.
Olmsted brought novelty in externalizing his ideas of designing city parks around the United States, conceived the whole systems of parks, and interconnecting parkways facilitating connectivity to certain cities to green spaces. Buffalo and Louisville, Kentucky are some of the finest examples of his creative scale in designing city park systems. He passed away in 1903.
It is almost a universal axiom that landscaping businesses are capital intensive.
They require loans as an imperative survival-growth option to cover costs, grow and expand their business.
Today the commercial landscaping business is not limited to grass-mowing. As a professional business owner, you must take a lot more than a lawnmower and have the determination to get the job done.
Apart from arming your business with cutting-edge equipment, it also needs a team of skilled and dedicated staff and marketing at the very least.
Handling these responsibilities in business is not easy, considering they are expensive, and consequently warrant adequate working capital to streamline your business and be successful in it.
Thankfully, the market is replete with some of the best landscaping business loan options for your business. However, when it comes to taking business loans for landscaping business, things may turn pretty ugly, especially in situations when your loan candidacy doesn’t reflect impressive creditworthiness, or higher credit scores, and healthy business finance.
Why?
Because most private and government lenders across the U.S. prefer loan candidates with higher credit scores. The loan application is spurned if the eligibility criteria are not met.
The good news is that there are so many options for you in the market that you don’t have to stick to a handful of lenders for having your landscaping business funded easily, without the requirement of strong credit scores.
For instance, alternative lenders, such as Funderial, can help you with many options for business loans for your lawn care at friendly terms and rates, without prolonged wait time and a hard examination of your credit standing.
With the help of landscaping business loans, you will have enough cash flow to cover expenses for hiring more staff members.
As your business grows, the cost related to hiring more new employees for your landscaping team will be handled by the loan.
You can use the loan as an investment in the training program of your employees that would prove highly productive for them to work more efficiently.
The landscaping business loan can be used to buy new equipment trailers, or upgrade to newer mowers, as well as other lawn and garden tools.
You can use the loan to pay for worker’s compensation insurance or cover your business’ assets with liability insurance.
This is one of the top options for landscaping business owners seeking business loans. However, SBA loans are typically available for borrowers who have impressive credit standing.
So, you can say this option may suit the lawn care companies and other borrowers with strong credit. The remarkable feature of these top-tier business loans from SBA is that they are not conditional to the point of being unfriendly compared to their counterparts.
A borrower with strong credit scores can obtain SBA business loans for landscaping businesses at friendly terms associated with long repayment periods and lower interest rates.
The SBA loans may seem to be regulated by the government agency, the reality is different.
An 85% of the principal loan amount (depending on the amount) that the bank guarantees to a borrower is based on the fact that lenders (typically small banks) understand that the risk is lower and so they are in a position to offer the best financing options for borrowers, at the most competitive rates.
Obtaining SBA loans is surely the most nourished dream of most borrowers.
This accounts for why these loan options are usually difficult to acquire for borrowers due to increasing demands that have made lenders more selective and pedantic who consider only qualified business owners, with at least a 650 minimum personal credit score.
Another major turn-off for taking an SBA loan ASAP is annoyingly prolonged wait time due to a lot of paperwork to apply for the loan and longer processing time.
Lawn care companies and landscaping businesses can choose equipment financing as one of the best financing options to address the most capital-intensive parts of the business, which is buying the equipment to streamline the job and succeed the business.
The equipment financing can help you cover the costs related to buying small tools like shears or big ones like a modern professional mower. The equipment financing is an ideal choice for a landscaping business that requires a variety of equipment, such as trash bins, vehicles, lawnmowers, leaf blowers, sprayers, and string trimmers, etc.
The terms and conditions associated with the loan depend on the type of equipment purchased, and whether you purchased a piece of brand new equipment or used one. The best thing about equipment financing is that you don’t have to pledge your assets as collateral to your lender. , as the equipment you purchased will serve as collateral.
This “self-collateralized” loan allows the lender to use your equipment as the loan’s collateral in case of default.
The no-collateral condition doesn’t mean that obtaining equipment financing will require you to have excellent credit scores. You may qualify to receive a loan even if you have a poor credit score. Moreover, there is no condition attached to having multiple years in business or high revenue.
This loan option allows you to purchase the essential pieces of equipment for your business outright. Hence, it makes sense if you use the finance to buy a piece of equipment that doesn’t go outdated soon or must have an extended lifespan.
Consider it carefully, as the term of the loan usually comes to an end with the life of the equipment.
For a landscaping business owner, a business line of credit is a useful financing option due to its amazing flexibility.
This type of loan option works more like a credit card as you are entitled to use the amount credited within the permissible limit until the balance runs out. In that case, you are supposed to pay for the interest on the amount of money you have exhausted.
The main difference in this type of loan is that you don’t get to receive a lump-sum loan.
The interest applies to the amount you have used.
You will also find “revolving” types of lines of credit, which means they re-up once you are no longer obliged to pay them back.
Another feature of this loan that makes it more useful for borrowers is having an interest rate that is less expensive compared to other business credit cards available in the market.
A good reason to opt for invoice financing is when your business has outstanding invoices from your customers.
With the help of this financing option, you can sell your pending invoices to third-party businesses and stay relaxed from waiting over many days for checks to clear.
This is a form of asset-based financing in which you receive upfront financing in exchange for your unpaid invoices. Lenders can advance nearly 85% of the value of your invoices and you get the remaining of the funds once your invoices are paid.
The feature of this financing option is that your invoices serve as collateral on the capital you want to borrow. This could also mean standing qualified for other types of business loans in the future.
One of the benefits of invoice financing for landscaping businesses is that it will alleviate their cash flow problems caused by unpaid customer invoices.
This financing option is good considering landscaping businesses depend on seasonal factors.
Opt for this option when you need enough finance to pay for a long-term loan.
The good thing about applying for this loan is that you can qualify for it based on low credit scores and low revenue.
The bottom line is when it comes to availing a loan for a landscaping business, you have to be precise and diligent – apart from being good with your cash. It is an essential consideration, as your business depends on seasonal factors.
The safest ways are planning your spending and financing wisely and keeping your credit score high so that you can find various loan options in the market that will serve your business purpose well.
You will often see business loans at the most competitive interest rates and repayment terms. However, you may encounter problems in meeting their eligibility criteria for loan acquisition. You might be asked to put up collateral or must have credit scores of more than 650. Lastly, you may be asked to fulfill the condition regarding the minimum revenue requirement.
One more thing – you may experience a dilatory process due to lengthy paperwork and scrutiny of your financial documents supporting your loan candidacy.
A very good option for the loan seekers who don’t want to encounter a drawn-out loan processing and longer wait-time for acquiring requested loans for the landscaping business. Most business owners can take a loan without putting up collateral. There is no requirement of having higher or excellent credit scores as well. Potential borrowers from lawn and yard maintenance businesses can find alternative lenders very useful to get their business requirements funded quickly. Alternative lenders are a surefire way to solve your immediate working capital needs, due to faster processing of loan applications and same-day funding in most cases.
To obtain landscaping business loans, Funderial has been an excellent resource for lending.
Since 2010, this BBB Accredited Business remains a leader in the lending market assisting over 1 billion dollars in lending to small to midsize businesses, providing them with flexible lending /repayment options specific to their needs.
For landscaping businesses to run successfully, timely financial assistance is one of the most important things to manage cash flow. You can cover daily operational expenses, afford higher equipment expenses, including new equipment upgrades, maintaining older equipment, expanding the business development marketing/advertising, refinancing existing debts, payroll, etc.
This is where loan companies like Funderial come into the picture, extending a broad variety of loan options for small and medium-sized businesses, at attractive terms through in-house financing models, as well as the offer of Trusted lending partners across the United States.
To help you operate your business and maintain its sustainable growth, we have a host of unique financing options at affordable rates and easy terms, with instant approval timespan, and quick turnaround funding.
We are fully aware of the dire financial need a business owner experiences. In critical times like the pandemic-ravaged economic status of the United States forcing businesses to shut down their businesses, our well-timed funding assistance is a quality solution to helping your business survive the critical situations and thrive in them.
