Landscaping Services Industry Profile

The US landscaping services industry includes about 90,000 companies with combined annual revenue of about $50 billion. Major companies include the TruGreen Companies, The Davey Tree Expert Company, The Brickman Group, Asplundh Tree Expert, and ValleyCrest Landscape Companies. The industry is highly fragmented: the top 50 companies generate about 15 percent of revenue.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand is driven partly by construction of new commercial properties and partly by the economy's overall health. Because management and equipment costs are mainly fixed, the profitability of individual companies depends on demand volume and operations' efficiency. Small companies can easily compete with big ones, except in providing services to large customers. Big companies operate mainly through local branches or offices that have operations almost identical to those of local companies. The industry is labor-intensive: annual revenue per employee is about $80,000.

PRODUCTS, OPERATIONS & TECHNOLOGY

Landscaping services include commercial and residential landscape maintenance, landscape construction (about 10 percent of revenues), irrigation systems, tree services, chemical lawn care and pest control, and "line-clearing," or branch removal around utility lines. Larger companies may offer several of these services, but most provide just one. Commercial landscaping services account for about 50 percent of industry revenues; residential, for 30 percent. In winter, some companies provide snow removal services.

For a typical commercial client, a landscape maintenance company might provide mulching, fertilizing, and flower planting in spring; mowing, pruning, irrigation, and fertilizing in summer; and leaf clearing in ...