What Homeowners Want
Irrigation & Green Industry (IGIN) trend articles do a great job in surveying landscape contractors nationwide to find out which products and services homeowners want. What homeowners want is quite similar to 2020 but the difference is scale and style: homeowners are looking for bigger and bolder outdoor living, landscape features, and formal style. Let’s discuss each trend, how you can to meet customer demands, and how to prepare for the material needs.
Outdoor Living Areas
COVID-19 accelerated the demand for outdoor space. As in the 2008 recession, people were forced to spend more time at home which fed a desire for a more enjoyable home environment. Outdoor living areas have been trending for 15 years, but for 2021 homeowners want larger and nicer areas. They want to expand their inside living style to outside, and they want to upscale the outdoor level of comfort.
Partitioned Spaces
A new trend is to partition the outdoor space much like inside the home. Homeowners will jump on the idea of a cooking-eating area (the kitchen and dining room), a seating area, (living room), an entertainment area (family-party room) with TVs, a pool area with showers and dressing rooms, tied together and partitioned off. Homeowners want all this in a more plush and more luxurious way than before. They no longer want wood chairs; instead they want cushioned seating just like in their living room.
Partitions can be created using pergolas, hardscape walls, or greenery. Complexity of construction is pushing landscapers into more construction knowledge. Customers also want larger features. Bigger finished spaces surrounded by bigger landscape components. It’s everything homeowners have asked for the past 10-15 years, but in a larger, upscale format. Contractors need to make sure they allot extra time and obtain the know-how needed to build these upscale spaces.
Formal Outdoor Living
The trend has moved from a natural look and homeowners now desire a clean and formal appearance. Formality means that contractors should focus offering a selection of decorative block. Formality also means larger hardscape construction, and the implication is that contractors will need to schedule more consultation time and offer hardscape choices to find the look they want.
Water Features and the Kitchen Sink
Homeowners want their cake and eat it too: they want bigger bolder areas, but they still demand maintenance to be simple and easy. It is important that contractors offer easy-care equipment and materials. For example, offer storage for chair cushions and cookware. Also make sure that grills, sinks, and granite counter tops are designed for easy cleaning. Pond-less Water features are wanted, but people are avoiding open pools of water requiring maintenance.
Plant material must be slow growing and easy to tend, and contractors should suggest using dwarf plants, native plants, fruit trees and vegetables. Dwarf plant offer many varieties and are low in maintenance. Dwarfs allow interesting design features, such as beautiful plant beds right up to the seating or viewing areas. The trend in native plants continues, mostly in arid regions to help reduce water requirements. There is a continued interest in fruit and vegetables as part of the landscape as well.
Lighting is Important
These formal outdoor spaces come with a hefty financial investment, so homeowners want to enjoy them at any time, day or night. Your customers take great pride in their home when entertaining and that happens mostly at night. They want a magical scene and lighting can make it special. It is critical to install landscape lighting – do not skimp on the lighting! Good lighting ties together their entire yard into a beautiful massive scene. Read our article on Landscape Lighting Technologies to learn more about how to set up color enhancements, dimming, zoning and timed schedules.
Material Conundrum
To fulfill customer demands is not easy for contractors; finding the type and volume of materials necessary can be challenging. It is important to inform customers about the challenges of supply. While customers in this on-demand world don’t like hearing their job can’t happen for many weeks (or months), the material issue affects everything related to home renovation and upgrades. Homeowners are hearing the same story when buying appliances, new carpet, or furniture.
Homeowners are asking for mature appearing landscape, which means larger plants. They don’t want to wait a few years for things to grow, they want it now. Growers are struggling to supply the demanded varieties and sizes of plants. As one grower stated, “You just don’t grow a plant in a few weeks”.
Stone yards are also being pushed to timely fulfill orders of non-stocked materials. Customers are used to many selections and with the current supply chain challenges, this makes for a logistical and costly shipping venture.
Lastly, suppliers want better coordination with landscapers. Contractors can expand their supply network and deepen relationships with suppliers to assure they get what their customers want.
