Peter Bigwood, general manager, Mecalac North America, discusses challenges in the landscape industry, trends and more.
Green Industry Pros: How would you describe the current state of the landscape industry?
Bigwood: While fallout still looms from the slowdown in housing starts, there are certainly some bright spots. The hardscaping sector, particularly, has shown residual growth in activity.
Green Industry Pros: What trends have you noticed in the past year or so?
Bigwood: Apart from the adverse effects of high interest rates and the related decline in housing starts, demand is still growing in certain spots. Golf courses and cemeteries, for example, are a couple of areas that stand out for us with high activity.
Green Industry Pros: What challenges are you hearing from landscape customers?
Bigwood: In terms of challenges, what we’re primarily hearing are the usual suspects. Finding and retaining skilled employees continues to be difficult. Interest rates and material costs remain high, which is certainly having an impact on landscaping contractors.
Green Industry Pros: How are they contending with those challenges?
Bigwood: In the case of labor, we find more landscaping contractors are adopting versatile equipment that can excel in several applications to improve productivity and reduce the number of required workers on any given job. Like many manufacturers, we have offered more aggressive financing terms to counteract the impact of high interest rates—in effect, sacrificing margin to encourage investment in new equipment.
Green Industry Pros: What are your expectations for 2025?
Bigwood: The end of 2024 makes us cautiously optimistic for growth in 2025. Interest rates are starting to ease, demand is rising and the supply chain bulges are working themselves out. Hopefully, that remains and the landscaping industry experiences a strong, prosperous year.
