Ken Schwarz

Vice president and COO, K&R Landscaping

Hamilton, Ohio

Ken Schwarz believes last year’s supply chain shortage was the worst he’s dealt with since he started his company in 2007.

“We had trouble getting all kinds of different things,” he says. “We had put in some major landscape installs where we were waiting on products.”

Anything from garden fences to plant material was delayed, especially the latter given freezes in the south where lots of nurseries are housed. But Schwarz pivoted quickly, sourcing some materials like mulch locally.

Now, shipping outlook on some products is still as long as 12 weeks, but he believes it’s been much better.

“Everything like fuel is still pretty high,” Schwarz says, adding that replacement parts are more expensive, even on anything as small as a snap-on toolbox for his shop. “The product’s available, but it’s costing a lot more.”

As winter approaches, Schwarz says his team doesn’t have an offseason like others — they’ll be doing commercial snow services again this year, though he anticipates doing more salting than snow removal. After all, a lukewarm winter season resulted in lots of ice in the Midwest but not so much snow, save for a few particularly intense storms.

Managing those services can be trickier because of the rising costs, too. Schwarz says the price on salt has risen dramatically, and many of his commercial accounts are multiyear contracts. He’s not passing on much more than a 3% price increase onto his clients.

“We’re out there to be a profitable company but we’re out there to take care of our customers, too,” Schwarz says. “That’s how you keep the customers forever. It’s all about the relationship.”

Speaking of relationships, Schwarz says he’s actually managed the labor shortage well. He’s got a staff of 15 employees and expects to pull in around $3 million this year. But the real trick has been keeping his crew leads happy: they’ve all been with the company for over 10 years.

“We’ve never had any problem getting labor as far as experienced labor in our area,” he says, adding that they work with the H-2B program, getting as many as six employees sometimes from H-2B.

A big reason for the H-2B usage, he says, is that finding experienced labor has been an issue this year. Just recently, he had an employee who was supposed to show up to his shift but ghosted the management entirely when it was time to actually report to work.

“It blows my mind away,” he says. “Of course, I’ve been in the business for over 30 years now. I’ve seen a lot.”

Peter Salmeron

President, Professional Landscaping Services, Wichita, Kansas

A tight labor market has kept Peter Salmeron and Professional Landscaping Services busy in Wichita, Kansas.

But actually, completing that work has been a tall task. With temperatures peaking over 105 degrees at times this summer, that has forced his team to operate at capacity. He’s always dealt with hot summers in Kansas, but “this year has been different.” It’s affected their revenue because they can’t do the work, and job estimates aren’t as accurate because 10-hour jobs are now 15 hours as employees need to take more breaks or come back the next day to complete the job.

“All that affects the bottom line,” he says.

Of course, with enough workers, that’s not a huge issue. And at one point, the $1.5-million company had people waiting in line to apply for work. Now, Salmeron says they have to look for them. PLS has found its workers — they do a mixture of design/build and maintenance work with their 20 employees. And some of those employees have been great workers there for several years. But it’s been a struggle — he estimates a quarter of his staff is a revolving door of workers.

“It’s been difficult. The labor source has dried up,” Salmeron says. “Unfortunately, the new generation has different standards and different work habits. They’re not as committed. They don’t seem to be as interested in the quality of work. There doesn’t seem to be as much pride in the work.”

Managing the training with such high turnover has been another challenge, but Salmeron says PLS has a good system in place now with biweekly safety meetings, combining the experienced employees with the newer ones in one spot.

But what’s been particularly trying is figuring out the right price to charge customers based on the labor that can get done. Salmeron says it’s been more critical than ever to get these prices right.

“It’s very important for a landscape company to understand the labor cost,” he says. “If you don’t understand what your costs are, you’re doomed to go bankrupt or close your business.”

This is also important given the high markup on materials. Salmeron says PLS irrigation pipes and sprinkler heads have doubled in price, for instance, and seed has increased over 50% due to its lower availability after droughts sabotaged the supply.

Other challenges Salmeron says PLS has faced include the hoops needed to jump through to finance equipment and trucks, which often come with a high interest rate. He says the supply chain has stabilized but they’re still waiting a few days to get new materials or parts from time to time.

For his part, Salmeron is passing those costs on to the customer. He hasn’t had much pushback because everyone else is going through the same issues they are.

“It is what it is,” he says. “I’m sure if they think it’s too expensive, they’ll go to somebody else.”

Dave Thurston

President, Royal Lawn and Landscape, Holt, Michigan

Dave Thurston called this year’s weather pattern in Michigan the weirdest he’s ever seen.

It’s not for a lack of experience in the industry: Thurston says Royal Lawn and Landscape, now at roughly 17 employees, has operated since 1990. But the weather this year certainly ignited some consternation, as a normal-looking spring quickly turned into a dry spell. The maintenance crews could skip mowing the lawns since so many hadn’t grown at all.

The dramatic shift in weather came after the Fourth of July, as Thurston says they’ve had inches of rain every single week since Independence Day. One week after Labor Day, and his part of Michigan still dealt with an inch-and-a-half of rain.

“Our grass is out of control,” Thurston says. “We’re double, triple-cutting to get rid of excess grass. That’s very odd for our climate.”

Thurston says the other primary challenge this year has been a higher cost of living in the state. To help compensate for that, they raised wages early in the season. Thurston says this isn’t atypical though — they do it once or twice a year, especially if the employee has been with the company for a while. But by and large, most of the team earns $2-$5 more an hour than they did even a few years ago.

But the wage hike isn’t because Thurston’s struggling to find employees. He believes he hasn’t seen the same labor shortage that other contractors report. Each morning, he pulls up to traffic lights or gas stations and sees landscapers in trucks fueling up.

Sure, Thurston does readily admit finding employees wanting to do physical labor is a challenge, but as far as the industry goes, he believes it’s a matter of forging the right connections.

“We’re short on people who want to work on that short of a labor skill, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily just our trade,” he says.

So, Thurston says he’s taken to investing more time with prospective employees during interviews. As a result, where some employers are taking anyone they can get, he’s been able to select employees from a lineup of a few candidates. Asking questions about their personal goals, getting a sense of what makes them tick and asking how Royal can help them reach their goals within the next three to five years has been helpful.

“I hired a guy that started this week, and he said, ‘I’ve had several jobs in my lifetime, I’ve worked in the green industry for the last 10 or 12 years, and I’ve never had anyone dialogue with me at this level,’” Thurston says.

Now, it’s also all about qualifying the candidates, too, so the hire makes sense. Thurston says he looks at previous job histories and asks about what’s behind that pattern. If they stuck around somewhere longer than others, Thurston asks what changed there.

And, he feels he’s also honest about what his line of work’s all about. He tells candidates, “we work when it’s hot, we work when it’s cold. And if it snows on Christmas, we get called in.” Thurston says from there, he’s become good at reading body language to see if they’re excited about working in the industry at all or not.

“I think the people that want to be in this industry are seeking out stronger companies to work for, places where they can be treated well. Considering the fact that they also have families, quality of life is important to them,” he says.

That extends to clients, too. Thurston says he’s got a positive outlook because many of his top clients re-signed on to Royal’s latest bids despite some price increases. And in some cases, some of his clients are buying more real estate that’ll need some of their work, and previous clients who left for other landscapers are coming back because they missed out on quality service.

That high-quality service isn’t always easy, but there are some easy solutions. Thurston says he’s seen some customers who never hear from the other landscapers they call requesting quotes.

“If they call and you respond, you’ll probably get the job,” he says.

Eddie Martindale President, D&E Landscaping and Grading, Richmond, Michigan

Elsewhere in Michigan, Eddie Martindale’s team at D&E Landscaping and Grading are catching up with “an ungodly amount of rain” from the summer season.

“The faucet never shut off all summer,” he says.

With 37 employees, Martindale’s team does all sorts of landscaping jobs, and there’s plenty of maintenance jobs going around. But he says they can’t service the properties weekly like they usually would due to the massive amount of rain.

And Martindale adds he’s seen customer demand for design/build jobs slow down dramatically on the residential side. The slowdown was coming at some point after unprecedented demand, as Martindale says during COVID-19, they could pick and choose where they wanted to go, even needing to throw some estimates out because they didn’t have enough people to handle the work.

Over the last year or two, Martindale says he lost several key employees, and he believes that was a trend across the industry as wage increases occurred. Of course, he also says they raised their own wages about 10%. There was so much work to go around that everyone in the industry started paying employees more to handle it all.

“If your guys wanted to move, the demand of work was so high, so you had to pay your guy or they would’ve gone somewhere else,” he says.

With the market bearing a higher wage, Martindale obliged the requests for increased pay, but he also adds that it was probably a long time coming. He wants to ensure his employees make more than enough to live comfortably.

“You’ve got to make it worthy for someone to make a living doing (our work),” he says.

Demand has slowed, though not correlated with the wage increases that Martindale will certainly keep. He says most calls about residential hardscaping come down to needs and not wants. Say a retaining wall is collapsing near a driveway, they’ll still get plenty of that work. But nobody’s taking out cash to install giant patios like they were.

“I think the last three years, everyone decided to do their projects all at once, so there will be a little pause before some new ones come in,” he says. “It’s still around, there’s still some work, but it’s not like it was last year.”

As far as the designs actually being done, Martindale says one trend he’s noticed is that most customers are ordering larger pavers than they did before. There’s less maintenance and less weeds, and the look just generally seems to have more appeal at the moment.

“I think people visually are liking the larger paver now,” Martindale says. “That trend has switched over here probably in the past four or five years.”

The author is associate editor with Lawn & Landscape magazine.