National survey finds 40 percent of Americans with a yard hired professionals for lawn or landscape work in the last year

Americans seem to think it is important to make the investment to take care of their yards, with 40 percent of those with a lawn or landscape hiring a professional in the last year. According to an online survey commissioned by the National Association of Landscape Professional’s (NALP’s) Industry Growth Initiative and conducted by Harris Poll in September – October 2017, the top services used among Americans who have hired a lawn/landscaping professional in the past 12 months include tree care (51%), mowing (50%), lawn pest control (46%), and weed prevention and control (42%).

NALP’s Industry Growth Initiative commissioned the survey as a benchmark to track consumers’ purchasing habits when it comes to lawn and landscape services. The IGI is committed to growing the industry and its workforce and will measure its success against purchasing and hiring benchmarks.

Other survey results include the fact that among those who have a lawn or landscaping at their home, married individuals are more likely than those who aren’t married to have invested in lawn care and/or landscape maintenance services for their home in the past 12 months (45% vs. 33%).

What are the reasons Americans don’t hire a lawn care or landscape maintenance professional? Sixty-two percent of those who didn’t hire a lawn/landscape professional in the past 12 months say the costs is too high, while nearly half (49%) say they enjoy caring for their lawn themselves and 43 percent believe their yard is fine as is.

For those who have hired professional help, 52 percent did so to help their lawn/landscape look better, while 41 percent wanted to save time and 30 percent wanted to enjoy their yard more.

 

Survey methodology

This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Poll on behalf of NALP between September 28 – October 2, 2017 among 1,721 adults ages 18+ who have a home with a lawn/landscaping. An additional, abbreviated survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Poll on behalf of NALP between October 26-30, 2017 among 1,594 adults ages 18+ who have a home with lawn/landscaping, as it was determined a query on homeowners’ behaviors with the application of fertilizer to their lawns was inadvertently omitted from the original survey. These online surveys are not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.