Most people care about the look of their property, and for those with private residencies outside of the stone jungle of the city, having a good looking lawn can mean the difference between being a part of driving up the neighborhoods home values, or being the owner that brings it down for everyone else. While most people are happy to mow their own lawns and even plant some flowers, to get a general good look individually tailored to one’s home, is a job most people reach out to a landscaper for. So the landscaping business can be a rewarding one, but like anything else, there are some downsides to consider. In this article, we’ll look at the pros and cons of being a landscaper.
Positives of Being a Landscaper:
● Good pay. The pay could vary based on several factors, like whether you work for a landscaping company or manage one. An experienced landscaper can fetch around $45k per year, which is a decent salary depending on where you live in the USA. A popular landscaper in a particular area who does good work could count on repeat customers, circulating their profits on an annual basis. It isn’t as much as you’d make as a lawyer or physician’s assistant, but it is a solid living.
● Seasonal options. While the substantial share of the action occurs over the spring, summer, and fall months, a lot of landscapers make great money in the winter by offering snow clearing services. This does require showing up very early in the mornings in potential blizzard-like conditions to clear out people’s driveways or access to their homes. Still, these situations most years tend not to be overwhelmingly frequent.
● Flexibility. Landscapers can work on a whole variety of projects or become specialists of a particular type. Working residentially to tailor great looks for specific homes, or with city engineers or land surveyors to determine the best location for roads, plantlife, and designing the outlay of parks, are all potential areas a landscaper could delve into.
● Personally rewarding. If landscaping is a passion, and it certainly is for some people, this may not feel so much like work, but just an activity that you love, and just happen to make good money for.
Negatives of Being a Landscaper:
● Hard to get started. Getting most business off the ground is not easy, and the same goes for landscaping. It is a very popular niche, and many people enter the profession. Even working for a landscaping company, one may have a tough time landing a position quickly as most landscapers already have a reliable team of people that they need and do not have the need or resources for any others. For a landscaping business to get off the ground, it would need to consider how to differentiate itself from likely multiple local competitors already solidly in the game.
● Long hours. Landscaping work can bring with it very long hours. Most arrangements made with residents involve some deadline and meeting these deadlines while juggling multiple jobs, not to mention running into unanticipated scenarios along the way, could result in very early morning starts and very late finishes.
● Balancing multiple projects. As a landscaping company, there is a finite amount of employees that it can sustain. These are resources that would have to be spread accordingly between projects. Landscapers are not working just one job at a time. If that were the case, this would be far from a lucrative career. When multiple customers ask for work, the landscaper is often not in a position to refuse them and send them to a competitor, so there is a need to take on a whole bunch of work, which can mean straining resources quite extensively.
● Hot weather. As most of the weather takes place in the warmer months, especially from late spring to early fall, most of the work takes place in potentially brutal heat. Additionally, there are bugs to deal with anytime one works with plantlife. There are breaks during the day, but those are typically to eat outside, also in the heat.
Being a landscaper has an equal mix of pros and cons. It seems like it is mostly based off personal preference if you’d like the work.
- Tulip Mania – The Story of One of History’s Worst Financial Bubbles - May 15, 2022
- The True Story of Rapunzel - February 22, 2022
- The Blue Fugates: A Kentucky Family Born with Blue Skin - August 17, 2021
