Landscaping services industry

Industry Snapshot

GENERAL INDUSTRY: Architecture and Construction

CAREER CLUSTER: Architecture and Construction

SUBCATEGORY INDUSTRIES: Arborist Services; Cemetery Plot Care Services; City Planning Services; Garden Care and Maintenance Services; Garden Planning Services; Golf Course Planning Services; Industrial Land Use Planning Services; Interior and Exterior Plant Maintenance Services; Landscape Architectural Services; Landscape Care and Maintenance Services; Landscape Installation Services; Landscape Planning Services; Lawn Care and Maintenance Services; Lawn Supply Stores; Nurseries and Garden Centers; Seasonal Property Maintenance Services, Including Snow Plowing; Ski Area Planning Services; Tree Services

RELATED INDUSTRIES: Building Architecture Industry; Building Construction Industry; Civil Services: Planning; Natural Resources Management; Real Estate Industry

ANNUAL DOMESTIC REVENUES: $150 billion (IBISWorld, 2024)

NAICS NUMBERS: 56173, 541320, 444220

Summary

Landscaping services enhance the built environment, both commercial and residential. Landscaping may commence with design services. Exterior and interior landscaping services involve site preparation and installation of plant materials, including lawns, shrubs, trees, and gardens, followed by maintenance. During winter months, exterior landscape maintenance of plant materials and weed control may be unnecessary in areas with colder climates and landscaping service providers may plow snow and remove ice instead. Interior plant maintenance within buildings is required year-round. Landscaping services include ancillary activities, such as installation of irrigation and drainage systems; lighting planning and installation; and construction of outdoor structures, retaining walls, walkways, and built accents known as hardscape.

History of the Industry

Humans have tamed the natural landscape since ancient times. Early examples of such landscaping include the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, in which elaborate irrigation systems were maintained. In addition, Japanese gardeners have designed and maintained meditative Zen gardens since the fifth century. Introduction of built features into the natural landscape was also a service provided by early landscapers, and the Great Wall of China is such a feature. Slaves often provided the labor necessary to complete such ancient landscaping projects.

The practice of landscaping began to evolve during the Roman era. Wealthy Romans and Greeks maintained formal gardens for decorative purposes that were based on rigid, geometric designs. Letters written by Pliny the Younger describe the landscape at his Tuscan estate as consisting of trimmed boxwood hedges maintained to segment the landscape into precise geometric shapes. In addition, archaeologists have found several examples of formal gardens that include landscaping features such as water fountains.

Although landscape design and services were of little consequence during the early part of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries prompted a reemergence of formal gardening in the West, especially in France and Italy. Many monasteries had gardens that were maintained by members of monastic communities. Wealthy persons’ gardeners, such as those employed to maintain the Tivoli Gardens or the classical French gardens of Versailles, sculpted plant materials into topiary animals and maintained elaborate water, walkway, trellis, arbor, and wall features to enhance the designs and further complement the surrounding architectural estates.

The English revived informal landscapes in the eighteenth century with English cottage gardens that often overflowed with flowers. As gardens became less formal and smaller, members the general populace provided their own landscaping services or began to engage gardeners to maintain agricultural plants, medicinal herbs, and fruit trees that not only served practical purposes but also enhanced aesthetics. The landscaping of grounds surrounding estates became more informal and natural, influenced by the Romantic movement and landscape art, and parklands were created for the public. The English gave birth to the profession of landscape architecture.

In the United States, lawn installation and maintenance emerged as a dominant component of landscaping services, influenced by nineteenth and twentieth century landscape and park designers such as Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted incorporated open lawns in many of his designs, including the 1869 layout of the Chicago suburb of Riverside. Public landscaping services to establish and maintain parks, cemeteries, golf courses, and related facilities were provided by municipalities, states, and the federal government. Urban planners encouraged the wedding of nature with the humanmade environment.

Edwin Budding invented the lawn mower in 1830, promoting the growth of landscaping in suburbs and increasing the need for landscaping services, which were no longer limited to the rich. Private landscaping services began to thrive as more private property owners designed lawns and planted other plant materials to beautify their homes. In addition, commercial landscaping services grew rapidly during the twentieth century, as owners of commercial and institutional buildings used plant materials and incorporated landscape features into their overall designs for aesthetic and marketing purposes. Maintenance of such plant materials and built landscape features is now a mainstay of the landscaping services industry.

The Industry Today

Twenty-first century landscaping serves many purposes, such as providing functional and relaxing living spaces, mostly outdoors; creating specific moods and first impressions through the deployment of plants and constructed materials; and enhancing property values. Landscapers and landscape architects improve many portions of the human built environment, including residential, commercial, and institutional buildings, such as educational facilities, hospitals, and museums; highways; airports; land subdivisions; and shopping malls. Public and private open spaces, including parks, playgrounds, recreational areas, golf courses, athletic fields, and cemeteries are also part of the constructed landscape developed and maintained through landscaping services.

Many of the twenty-first century’s landscaping services are the same as those that have been employed in the past, but the methods for providing these services have been enhanced by technology and invention, starting with the lawn mower in 1830. Most landscapers use small hand or power tools and equipment to perform a variety of tasks that might involve digging, cutting, raking, watering, and spraying. Shovels, rakes, saws, trimmers, clippers, pruners, loppers, shears, and blowers are typical tools used by landscape maintenance workers and groundskeepers. Landscapers, especially contractors, may also use larger equipment for installation and maintenance, such as tractors, grading implements, seeders, sprayers, sod cutters, trenchers, portable irrigators, and vacuums to remove water from playing fields. They may also work with dangerous chemicals, herbicides, fertilizers, and pesticides that require careful usage and training to prevent harm due to exposure.

Today’s landscape practitioners plan, install, care for, and maintain landscaping features of exterior and interior spaces. Activities such as site preparation; planting of trees, shrubs, plants, vines, and flowers—including native, imported, and ornamental materials; seeding lawns; laying sod and turf; and hydroseeding to control erosion are part of landscape installation. In providing these services, a landscaper may need to engage surveyors to stake out the layout of a plan before installation. Installing plant materials also involves carefully preparing beds, pits, and other planting locations with proper soil, fertilizers, and drainage. It may require erosion control, staking of young plants until they are established, and construction of tree-protection grates, especially in urban areas.

Once plant materials have been installed, groundskeepers and gardeners see to their maintenance and care. They prune and trim exterior trees and shrubs; fertilize and spray to control insects and diseases; control weeds; mow, edge, thatch, and aerate lawns; mulch surfaces with bark, wood chips, and other natural materials; care for cemetery plots; maintain gardens, parks, playgrounds, and athletic fields; and care for interior plants and shrubs in places such as office buildings, hotels, commercial malls, and botanical gardens. Arborists may be called upon to maintain trees and larger shrubs through pruning and trimming. Because arborists have special knowledge of tree diseases, they may also be required to clear diseased trees, remove diseased limbs and branches, treat tree wounds, and spray to control tree pests and diseases.

Landscaping service providers may also be called upon to remove plant materials to maintain rights of way through clear cutting and line slashing, mow along highways, and remove tree branches close to overhead utility lines. Modern sports arenas may employ groundskeepers to maintain playing fields and turf, whether natural or artificial. Landscaping may be a seasonal industry in many locales. During the spring, summer, and fall seasons, services may include cleanup after the winter, installation and maintenance of plants, and raking of leaves. During winter months, landscaping services may be limited to snow and ice removal.

Landscape service providers also introduce human-made features, known as hardscape, and some natural, nonplant materials into landscapes. In addition to designing such features, they may construct and install them. Hardscape and related landscape features include paved walkways and driveways; retaining walls; fencing; decks and outdoor living spaces; water features such as fountains and ponds; lighting; and other natural, structural, and masonry landscape elements, including rock walls, boulders, outdoor fireplaces, arbors, trellises, pagodas, gazebos, built-in furniture, garden art, containers, birdbaths, and birdhouses. Service providers may also be called upon to clean, paint, repair, and replace hardscape materials periodically; to turn on water features in the spring and winterize them in the winter; and to sweep walks and driveways.

Drainage and irrigation systems are also important features of landscape management. Landscape contractors, landscape architects, and related professionals analyze soils and water tables to determine the types of plant materials that can or should be installed in a given location and the irrigation levels necessary to sustain them. Some landscapers may use sophisticated equipment to obtain accurate readings of soil moisture, such as that involved in maintenance of golf courses. Some of the irrigation systems that might be installed and maintained by landscape service providers include sprinklers, drip or trickle systems, and newer technologies including subsurface irrigation distribution systems. Landscape management also includes control of water and proper drainage. Landscape workers may install and maintain drainage systems designed by civil engineers that include everything from drainage tiles to simple French drains.

The nursery industry is also a sector of the landscaping services industry. Landscape service providers may grow their own plant materials or create their own natural landscaping materials, such as wood chips and mulch, but they also partner with nurseries to provide such materials, and nurseries themselves provide advice and labor in addition to simply selling garden materials and supplies, thereby providing some level of landscaping service. A landscaper may also rely on a horticulturalist to provide information on the best plant materials for a particular climate or to resist locally prevalent diseases and pests.

Complex and even noncomplex landscape designs are typically provided by licensed landscape architects, who may be employed by architecture firms or by landscape services firms. In either case, architects work both with building architects and contractors and with landscaping contractors to design and deploy features that meet the needs of clients and also fit well with the overall grounds of which they will be part. Some larger landscaping companies have begun to offer a more comprehensive range of services that include building maintenance and security in addition to landscape installation and maintenance.

Industry Outlook

Overview

The outlook for the landscaping industry shows it to be on the rise. Although the recession of 2007–2009 and resulting growth in unemployment resulted in a downward trend for several years, and individuals and companies may still have less disposable income for landscaping services, the landscaping services industry is expected to continue to grow. This growth was slow at first, but the rate increased, both domestically and internationally, as the global economy continued to improve and especially as building construction has increased. A good indicator of the favorable growth in the landscaping services industry is the fact that franchising of this industry in the United States and internationally has been on the rise.

Worldwide, landscaping companies are highly affected by economic downturns. In addition, the landscaping services industry is very dependent on weather, and a company’s revenues may vary depending on the weather conditions and the season of the year. The industry also suffers from higher-than-average turnover, the result of both its seasonal nature in some locales and also the physical demands placed on workers.

Owners of institutional facilities, commercial developments, shopping malls, and office buildings continue to recognize the importance of presenting a positive visual image through landscaping, so the demand for landscaping services will continue to rise in line with nonresidential development, some of which is increasing in nations with fast-growing economies, including China and India, and in major construction locales, such as Dubai. Moreover, the increase in the number of elderly homeowners who are no longer able to maintain the landscapes around their homes, the need for many working householders to hire landscapers because they lack the time to provide the labor themselves, the desire of homeowners to better utilize and beautify their outdoor living spaces, and the continuing development of suburbs are factors that will contribute to future growth in residential landscaping services.

Utility companies also continue to provide ample growth opportunities for the landscaping services industry. Landscapers are engaged by public utilities not only to trim trees and prune plants to avoid power outages but also to prevent and control plant diseases and pests.

The greening of industry, also known as the environmental horticulture movement, has also favorably affected the growth of the landscaping services industry. In a study concerning the economic impact of the overall green industry in the United States, Hall, Hodges, and Haydu estimated that in 2002 the landscaping services sector had the greatest favorable impact on the economy in terms of employment, value added, and labor income. Thus, the landscaping services industry will continue to enjoy growth in the future, as more companies and individuals embrace the green movement and require the services of landscape workers and other related services. Indeed, by the 2020s, increased concerns regarding the effects of climate change have led businesses and residents to be more environmentally cognizant in their landscaping needs, and landscaping businesses have adapted to provide a wider range of services to cater to architecture and maintenance suited for unpredictable weather and water conservation. Landscaping companies have also embraced new technology, including tools and mobile applications.

Employment Advantages

The BLS has predicted that employment for grounds maintenance workers would grow by 3 percent between 2022 and 2032. Although wages are low for entry-level positions and the work is physically demanding, this is the perfect job for individuals who enjoy outdoor work. Employment for landscape architects was expected to grow as fast as average for the same period.

Most workers do not require training or college degrees, so younger workers may be able to find entry-level positions in the landscaping services industry. Moreover, because employment opportunities may be seasonal in some areas, the industry also provides part-time summer employment for students and others seeking seasonal jobs. Depending on the size of employees’ companies, they may enjoy job diversity, from providing installation and maintenance services for commercial and residential properties, to managing public and private recreational facilities, to maintaining lines for public utility companies.

Annual Earnings

The economy, and for some locations the season of the year, have significant effects on earnings in the landscaping services industry. Even when the economy is good, earnings in this industry are low compared to those of other industries. According to the BLS, in 2022 landscape architects had an annual median salary of $73,210, while grounds maintenance workers earned $36,160. First-line supervisors of landscaping, lawn service, and groundskeeping workers earned an annual median of $48,880 in 2022. IBISWorld reported revenues of $150 billion per year for US companies in the landscaping services industry in January 2024.

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