Lawn Care Industry Statistics That May Surprise You

Lawn care is essential for property owners (as well as some renters) with outdoor space. That’s why the lawn care and landscaping industry has a significant footprint in the United States economy. But if you haven’t been following lawn care and gardening trends, you just might be surprised by some of the current lawn care industry statistics. 

The lawn care and landscaping industry covers a variety of products and services addressing a wide range of lawn care needs and tasks.

This includes general lawn care and maintenance, as well as landscape design and implementation, flower and vegetable gardening, tree maintenance, and more. 

Keep reading to find our exploration of notable lawn care industry statistics. We’ve organized the statistics into several different categories, and hope some of the facts and stats we’ve gathered and sourced are as interesting to you as they were to me! 

Lawn Care Industry Growth Rate Statistics

Here are some notable statistics about the lawn care industry growth rate in the United States.

• The United States lawn care service sector is a fast-growing industry. Between 2018 and 2023,  the industry enjoyed an average annual growth rate of 8.1%. (Ibis World Landscaping Services Industry in the U.S. – Market Research Report). 

• The 2021 IBIS World Landscaping Services Industry report revealed that there were 621,733 businesses in the lawn care and landscaping arena. (IBIS World Landscaping Services in the U.S. – Market Size 2005-2029). 

• The states with the most lawn care and landscaping businesses are Florida, California, and New York. In 2022, there were 8,758 of these businesses in Florida, 8,288 of them in California, and 6,958 of them in New York. (IBIS World Landscaping Services in the US – Number of Businesses 2005-2029). 

• There was $176.5 billion in growth in the U.S. landscaping industry between 2018 and 2023. (IBIS World Landscaping Services in the US – Number of Businesses 2005-2029).         

• In 2021, the growth of the U.S. lawn care industry was projected to be 5.3%, which was higher than the overall national economic growth. (National Association of Landscape Professionals).           

• From 2018 to 2023, there was an average annual increase of 3.2% in the number of businesses in the landscaping industry in the United States. (IBIS World Landscaping Services in the US – Number of Businesses 2005-2029). 

• Experts say that there will be 10 percent growth in landscape industry growth between 2019 and 2029. (Insurance Bee).

Lawn Care Customer Demographics

Now let’s take a look at some facts about the demographics of U.S. lawn care customers. 

• The pandemic made gardening and lawn care much more popular as a hobby. 16 million adults in the United States who didn’t do lawn care and gardening as a hobby before the pandemic took it up. A large proportion of these people were younger than 33. (Garden Media 2021 Garden Trends Report). 

• The 2023 Gardening Insights Survey by Axiom revealed that 80 percent of participants planned to continue spending more time on gardening, extending the habit they’d picked up during lockdown. This includes younger demographics. (Axiom).

• The 2023 National Gardening Survey says that people between 18 and 34 years old spent more money on lawn and gardening activities than older people in 2022. (2023 National Gardening Survey).  

• People between 18 and 34 tried new lawn and garden activities more often than older people in 2022. People between 34 and 45 years old tend to prefer container gardening to gardening in a flower bed. This is all part of a focus on smaller spaces. The Garden Media Group has reported that the The Great Grow Along Survey indicated that container gardening is the most popular type of gardening for Americans between 34 and 45. They spend more time on that type of gardening than more traditional gardening. (Garden Media Group).

U.S. Lawn Care Market Size Statistics

We’ve listed some interesting statistics on the U.S. lawn care market size below.

• In 2022, the U.S. lawn care and landscaping services market size amounted to nearly 130 billion dollars (U.S. currency). Another report says that as of 2023, the U.S. landscaping services industry has an approximately 176 billion dollar market value. (Statista).

• Each of the three U.S. lawn care companies with the largest revenues all enjoyed revenues much higher than one billion dollars (U.S. currency) in 2021. (Statista). 

• Lawn care and landscaping services have the 106th largest market size of any industry in the United States. (Method.me). 

• Experts projected the global demand for garden supplies and lawn equipment in 2021 to reach $24.2 billion. (CSA Group). 

• Landscaping and lawn care features low market share concentration. This means that each individual company in this sector only has a small amount of market share. Specifically, each company has less than 5 percent market share. (Method.me).

• The forecast period of 2023 to 2028 is expected to see the landscaping and lawn care industry grow at a CAGR of 5.20%. Experts say the market share will increase from the 2022 number of 50,726.18 million (USD) to 65,359.82 million in 2028. (Modor Intelligence). Other studies say that the CAGR will be 5.1%. (Research and Markets). 

• The Garden Media’s 2021 Garden Trends Report (GTR) reported that after the pandemic, 82% of homeowners in the United States showed increased interest in improving their outdoor space. (Modor Intelligence).

Global Lawn Care and Landscaping Industry Facts

Here are some notable statistics about the global lawn care and landscaping industry.

• Experts estimated the landscaping services market around the world to be $296.09 billion (USD) in 2022. They forecasted the global landscaping market to reach 312.55 billion (USD) in 2023. (Grand View Research). 

• In 2022, North America had a 46.98% share of the global landscaping services market. (Grand View Research). 

• The global lawn care and landscaping services industry is forecasted to reach $484.79 USD in revenue by 2030. (Grand View Research). 

Landscaping and Lawn Care Firm Revenue in the U.S.

Now it’s time to explore some stats on landscaping firm revenues in the United States. 

• There is significant variation in U.S. landscaping company revenues. The landscaping company with the highest revenue in 2021 was reportedly Brightview. In that year, its annual review was 2.55 billion. (Statista). 

• Commercial property landscaping brings in approximately 50 percent of the revenue in the landscaping and lawn care services industry. (Method.me) 

• Experts forecast that landscaping services revenue in California will be approximately 11.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2024. (Statista).

• The LMN Landscaping Industry Report 2023 says that in 2022, 96% of U.S. landscaping businesses enjoyed an increase in revenue from 2021. (Landscape Management Network).

• In 2022, 96% of polled U.S. landscapers enjoyed an increase in revenue in 2022. One quarter of these businesses said that their revenue growth was between 20 and 50% that year. (Landscape Management Network).

• The three largest players in the lawn care and landscaping market in the United States hold just 7.82% of the industry’s total market share. Bright View Holdings has a 3.24% share, The Davey Tree Expert Co. has a share of 2.03%, and TruGreen, Inc. has a 1.36% share. (Modor Intelligence).

• In Landscape Management’s LM150 2022 rankings, we see that BrightView Holdings was the landscaping company with the highest 2021 revenue, at $2,553,600,000. (Landscape Management).

• The U.S. landscaping company with the highest revenue (BrightView Holdings) is based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. (Landscape Management).

• TruGreen is another U.S. landscaping company with a large revenue, at 1.5 billion dollars in 2021. (Statista). 

U.S. Lawn Care Spending Statistics

How much money does the United States spend on lawn care? Below you’ll find statistics on how much we spend on lawn care in the United States. 

• In the United States in 2021, homeowners in the United States spent $47.8 billion on garden and lawn care products. (2021 Garden Media Garden Trends Report). 

• In 2021, the value of the lawn care market in the United States was $48,218.8 million. (Modor Intelligence). 

• The largest landscape industry in the world is the United States. It has more lawn care providers and companies than anywhere else on the planet. (Modor Intelligence).

Average Lawn Care Household Spending in the U.S.

What is the average household spending on lawn care in the United States? Here are some interesting U.S. household lawn care spending statistics.

• The 2021 Garden Media Garden Trends Report reported that the age group with the largest lawn care spending was 35 to 44 year olds. Their mean spending per year was $608.54 in 2019. The average overall for all age groups in 2017 was $503. (Garden Media Group).

• In 2017, the average amount of money each consumer spent on lawn and garden supplies was $125 per year. (Statista).

• There was a $186 increase in average household lawn care spending between 2014 and 2017, moving from $317 to $503. (Method.me).

• It’s more common for homeowners to hire lawn care professionals than you might think. In 2017, a survey conducted by the National Association of Landscape Professionals discovered that 40% of people with a yard in the United States had hired landscaping or lawn care professionals in that year. (National Association of Landscape Professionals).

• Inflation is having a significant effect on lawn care and gardening spending. This is reflected in the National Gardening Survey, 2023 Edition. In that report, we see that more households in 2023 than in 2022 plan to decrease how much they spend on lawn care and gardening. However, more households in 2023 than in 2022 plan to increase how much they spend on growing their own food. (Garden Research).

Average Time Spent On Lawn Care in the U.S.

Let’s learn about the average time U.S. households spend on lawn care.

• We learn in Garden Media’s 2021 Garden Trends Report that many Americans are  starting to devote more time to lawn care and gardening during the 2020 quarantine. (Garden Media Group).

• In fact, it reports that more than 50% of all adults in the United States started spending two extra hours a day doing lawn care than they did before the pandemic. These habits continued into 2021. 

• In the American Time Use Survey – 2021 Results, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average amount of time each adult (who has a lawn and does lawn care) spends on lawn care varies between men and women. Men spend an average of 27 minutes a day on lawn and garden care, while women spend 14 minutes on average on these activities. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

• The American Time Use Survey – 2021 Results reports that only 11.3% of men and 9.0% of women do lawn and garden care every day. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

• In 2021, 62% of U.S. homeowners say that they planned to add more plants to their properties in 2022. (Axiom.com). 

• In 2021, 20% of gardeners said that gardening lowers their stress levels. (Axiom 2022 Market Insights Research). 

Vegetable Gardening Statistics

You probably have some neighbors who grow their own vegetables. Here are some facts on the subject. 

• Homeowners growing their own vegetables is more popular than you might expect. In fact, the National Gardening Association Special Report says that 35% (or 1 in 3) U.S. households grow food, such as vegetables and fruit. (National Gardening Association Special Report).

• Back in 2014, a press release from the National Gardening Association was already reporting that growing vegetables was becoming more popular. They explained that growing our own food started to become more prevalent with the financial crisis of 2008. Today in 2023, it continues to become more of a mainstay in American homes. (The National Gardening Association).

• A study by the National Gardening Association and Mother Nature Network discovered that in 2021, an average private vegetable garden in the United States was 96 square feet. The average garden and lawn owner or holder with a vegetable garden enjoys about $600 worth of produce that they can eat every year. (Garden Pals).

• In 2020, 39.1 million households in the United States had vegetable gardens. This was a significant increase from 31.9 million in 2019. (Statista).

Lawn Care and Landscaping Employment Statistics

The lawn care and landscaping industry is a significant sector when it comes to employment. Here are some notable facts about lawn care and landscaping industry employment in the United States. 

• Employment in the industry enjoyed significant growth between 2020 and 2021. During that time, there were 20,000 new landscaping workers hired across the country. (Statista).

• The LMN Landscaping Industry Report 2023 tells us that an enormous 92% of U.S. landscaping businesses weren’t able to find enough suitable staff in 2021. This fell to about 51% in 2022. (Landscaping Management Network).

• 58% of LMN Landscaping Industry Report 2023 survey respondents said that they were having such a difficult time finding trained workers that they were hiring people and letting them work without being trained. (Landscaping Management Network).

• The number of untrained workers in the landscaping industry is a big safety problem. A significant part of training in landscaping and lawn care is staying safe on the job. (Lawn & Landscape). When workers don’t get the training they need, this may lead to more insurance liability for companies.

• According to Statista.com, there were approximately 914,000 workers in the groundskeeping and landscaping industries in the U.S. in 2022. (Statista). Ibis World reports differently, however, providing the number of 1.3 million. (This Old House).

• The mean annual earnings for U.S. groundskeeping and landscaping workers in 2022 was approximately $37,000 dollars. (Statista).

• In the United States in 2022, the highest pay for landscaping and lawn care professionals was with the federal executive branch. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

• In May 2022, the mean hourly wage for landscaping and groundskeeping workers in the United States was $17.92. The lowest average wage was $13.24, while the highest was $23.33. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). 

Employment Statistics for Individual States

Below we’ve provided some industry employment statistics for a few specific states in the United States.

• According to the 2023 statistics, Florida is the state with the most landscaping jobs. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

• In 2022, there were more than 105,000 workers in the California landscaping industry. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2022, the places with the best wages for landscaping workers were Washington, D.C., Washington state, Massachusetts, Alaska, and Rhode Island. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

U.S. Landscaping Industry Demographics

We’ve listed some U.S. lawn care and landscaping industry demographics below.

• Some statistics show that 85.7% of landscapers are men, while only 10.3% are women. However, there are other reports saying that 22.5% of lawn care workers are women. (Zippia).  

• In 2019, men own 83% of landscaping companies in the United States. (Forbes).

• Only 3% of workers in the landscaping and lawn care industry identify as LGBT. (Zippia).

• In the lawn care industry, the average worker’s age is 41 years old. (Zippia).

• Vegetable gardening is becoming especially popular with millennials, as they’re eager to grow their own healthy foods. (Modor Intelligence).

• Mordor Intelligence reports that 59% of landscaping and lawn care service customers are single family residences. 29% of the customer mix is commercial businesses. After that comes multi-family residential properties at 11% and governmental properties at 5%. (Modor Intelligence).

• Higher income households are more likely than people living on a lower income to use chemical pesticide and weed control products. In 2021, 42% of people with an annual income over $100,000 used chemical pesticides and weed control products. By contrast, only 28% of people with incomes less than $50,000 used those products, preferring eco-friendly and organic options. In people earning between $50,000 and 100,000, 34% used chemical products, while 23% used eco-friendly or organic products, and 15% used homemade products. (Civic Science).

Other Lawn Care Industry Facts 

Here are some other landscaping and lawn care industry statistics that we should talk about.

• In 2021, HortTechnology reported that as a result of the pandemic, gardening became a more popular activity as a hobby in the United States. (HortTechnology, American Society for Horticultural Science).

• Turfgrass (lawn) covers 40 million acres of land in the United States. (PSCI, Princeton).

• In 2023, problems with finding qualified workers is the biggest challenge faced by the landscaping industry in the United States. In fact, the LMN’s Landscape Business Trends Report 2023 said that 51% of landscaping businesses have empty positions because they haven’t been able to find qualified labor. 

• In the fall of 2017, Harris Poll conducted a survey commissioned by the National Association of Landscape Professionals revealed the four top lawn care services consumers had purchased in the previous year. Tree care came in at the top, at 51%, while mowing had a 50% share. After that was lawn pest control, at 46%, while weed control came in at 42%. (Landscape Business).

• In 2022, the National Gardening Survey (commissioned by the National Gardening Association and National Wildlife Federation) showed an increase in how many U.S. adults choose plants for how they will support wildlife. This number increased to 34% from the 2020 number of 26%. (The National Wildlife Federation).

• According to the National Association of Realtors, there was a 217% cost recovery for standard lawn care maintenance services in 2023. Cost recovery refers to what return on investment a homeowner gets if they sell their house. (National Association of Realtors Research Group).

• Home Depot Garden Center was the most popular retail store for buying garden supplies for U.S. consumers in 2021. (Axiom 2022 Market Insights Research). 

Environmentally Friendly Lawn Care and Gardening

Environmentally friendly and organic lawn care options have become more popular with U.S. consumers. Here are some interesting statistics.

• 32% of people who responded to the National Gardening Survey in 2022 said that most or all of the lawn care products they buy were organic. (The National Wildlife Federation).

• While organic gardening is becoming more popular by the year, the ability to access advanced technology landscaping products is another factor in landscaping services industry growth. (Grand View Research). 

• In 2021, 60% of Americans reported that they thought environmental sustainability was at least a somewhat important consideration in lawn care. (Civic Science).

• Wildflower native landscapes are an important trend. In 2021, 19% of people in the United States planned to make a wildflower native landscape part of their lawns. This was a significant increase from 9% in 2019. (The National Wildlife Federation).

• More people in the United States are buying native plants than they did in the past. In 2022, 25% of people purchased native plants. This was a significant increase from 2020, when the number was 17%. (The National Wildlife Federation).

Final Thoughts

Lawn care, landscaping, and gardening are increasing in popularity in the United States, with more people seeing lawn and garden work as a hobby instead of a chore. As we see in the lawn care statistics presented here, this is a dynamic industry with constant change. 

Lawn care subscriptions have become an important part of the lawn care industry. Learn more about this in my Best Lawn Care Subscription Options article.