Cautious optimism

While uncertainty surrounds the landscaping industry due to COVID-19, the numbers from 2019 show the industry was healthy before the pandemic. After three consecutive years of median revenue decreasing, it grew to $297,000 compared to $273,000 in 2018. This is a good sign for the industry, although mean revenue decreased to $1.3 million from $1.5 in 2018, meaning the smaller and larger companies – the outliers – saw a slight decrease.

Contractors’ outlook for their companies is still positive, but those numbers did see a slight decrease. About 94% of landscapers were confident their companies would grow in last year’s survey, and this year it dropped to 88%. Last year, 6% were “not confident at all” that their company would grow, and this year that number jumped to 11%.

Labor once again remains the top concern but the overall amount of concern decreased from 6.9 out of 1-10 (10 means very concerned) scale in 2018 to 6.5 in 2019. COVID-19 was listed as a concern option this year and it tied for 7th out of 27 in our rankings with a 5.5 score.

— Brian Horn, editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine