What Equipment Do You Need to Start a Commercial Landscaping Business?

Getting ready to be a full time landscaper brings up a lot of questions. What do you need to start a landscaping business? What kind of equipment should you use? What is the first step to opening? How do you find customers? Learning the answers to these questions is essential to opening your business with confidence.

Let’s start with the equipment you will use to give your clients the service they need. Choose the equipment you purchase or rent based on the type of grounds care services you offer in order to avoid making investments in tools you won’t use.

U.S. Lawns Partnerships

When you start a landscaping business with U.S. Lawns, you can enjoy a host of benefits including our partnerships with equipment suppliers like eXmark/Toro, John Deere and Sunbelt Rentals. We are a national company with locations in more than 40 states, so the power of our brand gets you exclusive discounts and deals.

Get Your Clients First

What is the best advice we can give you as you start your business? Find clients before you invest in equipment. We tell all of our franchisees to wait to buy equipment until they have locked in clients, simply because that is how you will know what equipment you need to purchase or rent. Each client has different needs, so it does not make sense to purchase several zero-turn mowers when your first jobs require smaller walk behind mowers.

Choose Equipment Based on Services

After you have found clients you can start asking yourself what do you need to start a landscaping business. Equipment is essential to maintaining and beautifying commercial landscapes, so make investments in the tools that will help you do your job. Equally important is recognizing when to purchase equipment versus leasing or renting.

Now that you know what services your clients want from you, you can start buying or renting your equipment.

Lawn Maintenance

From mowing to edging to aerating, lawn maintenance requires a lot of work and some specialized equipment. Caring for lawns and turf is probably how you will spend much of your time, as these areas typically make up the bulk of commercial grounds. Choosing equipment that can complete a variety of tasks helps you make lawn care easier. You can read what U.S. Lawns Vice President Mike Fitzpatrick has to say about mower attachments here.

Irrigation

Caring for your clients’ irrigation systems will require regular checkups, maintenance, and repairs to keep everything in tip top shape. You work hard to keep those lawns green and the flowerbeds growing, and poor irrigation can get in the way of that. Keep up with what’s going on in the pumps and motors to ensure that the irrigation systems are running efficiently.

Flowerbeds and Cosmetic Landscaping

Creating beautiful outdoor spaces is the bread and butter of landscaping. That can include keeping grass green or planting and maintaining gorgeous flowers and shrubs. Many commercial clients like to inject their properties with color to make them more inviting on a seasonal basis. Multi-use utility vehicles can aid in beautifying endeavors as their numerous attachments suit them for a variety of uses.

Plant Health

Fertilizing, managing pests, and preventing weeds are critical to keeping your customers’ properties healthy. Weed killers and pest sprays are essentials in the landscaper’s toolbox, and buying them from some of our partners can save you money.

Snow and Ice

It’s important to commercial customers that you offer year round services. That means providing snow and ice management services during the winter months if you live in a snow market. Our customers expect their properties to remain safe and accessible after a winter storm. It’s our job to keep their businesses moving. From snow plows and snow blowers, to salt spreaders and melting agents, there are a large variety of equipment and materials needed to offer a responsive service. When you become a U.S. Lawns franchise owner, your access to our suppliers is just another benefit of working within our outstanding network. Equipment is an essential part of our jobs, and we work hard to ensure that our franchisees have access to the suppliers that get the job done.

Want to learn more about investing in a U.S. Lawns franchise? Next time you are wondering what you need to start a landscaping business, simply get in touch!