A day in the life · Landscaping
We followed a landscaping company for one full day. Every crew routed. Every maintenance stop that ran long because the irrigation head was broken and nobody told anyone. Here's what we're building, in the order it happens.
The shop in numbers
Avg. ticket
$250
Install
$8,500
Crew
2-6 techs
Market
$189B
Modeled on a 6-crew residential and light-commercial landscaping company with a mix of weekly maintenance accounts, seasonal install projects, and snow removal in winter. Numbers reflect industry medians for a business at the middle of a very wide market.
06:15
ACT 01
Crew leads get their route assignments and property notes before they leave the yard. One account flagged a dog in the back, crew leader already knows. The mowing crew has 14 stops; the install crew is on day three of a patio and pergola build in the next zip code.
10:30
ACT 02
Techniseal HP polymeric sand going in on a Techo-Bloc Raffinato patio. Crew supervisor documents each phase for the homeowner's HOA submission, they need photos proving the drainage slope before the sand is activated. It's in the job record before noon.
13:45
ACT 03
Mowing crew finds a broken Hunter PGP head at a commercial account. Crew lead photos it, tags it as a billable add-on, and the irrigation tech is rerouted. Property manager gets a text with the before/after before the truck leaves the parking lot.
19:00
ACT 04
Owner and designer review the rendering for a $22,000 front-yard project: sod removal, new planting beds, flagstone walk, uplighting. Estimate is built with material costs locked to that week's supplier pricing. It goes to the homeowner as a PDF before 9pm.
Weekly mowing contracts are the predictable floor that funds everything else. Lose three of them to a lowballer in February and you feel it in June when the install crews need payroll. Retention matters here more than anywhere.
Six crews out, six different margins. The mowing route that takes 30 minutes longer per stop than it should costs you more than the account is worth. You won't know until someone does the math.
Install and design work is high-ticket and project-based. Maintenance is recurring and route-based. Many shops run both under one roof and manage them like they're the same thing. They're not.
In northern climates, the same equipment, the same crews, and the same accounts flip to snow removal overnight. The shop that has contracts signed in September is the one that doesn't scramble when the first storm is 48 hours out.
After the day ends
Browse the products that show up across this day, or talk to someone who's watched a landscaping company run six crews and actually know where the margin went at the end of the week.
