What Landscapers Do and Who Hires Them
What commercial and residential landscaping work looks like across the seasons, and the crews and property managers hiring new laborers.
Table of contents
What the work looks like
Landscaping is seasonal, crew-based, outdoor work that splits into two big buckets: maintenance (mow, edge, trim, blow, fertilize, prune, cleanup) and installation (plantings, irrigation, hardscape, sod, grading). A typical maintenance crew has a foreman and 2 to 4 laborers, loads a trailer at sunrise, hits 10 to 20 properties in a day, and is back at the shop by mid-afternoon in peak season. Installation crews move slower on fewer sites with bigger machines.
Entry titles: landscape laborer, crew member, mow-and-blow crew, irrigation helper, and hardscape helper. Pay in the US typically runs $15 to $20 per hour for entry laborers, with foremen and irrigation techs earning $22 to $30+. Hours drop or shift to snow removal in winter (in northern climates) or to leaf cleanup and holiday lighting in the shoulder seasons.
Employers hiring at this level include national lawn-care chains (TruGreen, BrightView, Yellowstone Landscape, The Davey Tree Expert Company), commercial property-maintenance firms, residential design-build companies, independent local landscapers, municipal parks departments, and golf courses.
Safety and tools
PPE: ANSI Z87.1 safety glasses, hearing protection (mowers and blowers exceed 85 dB), steel-toe or composite-toe boots, long pants, work gloves, and a hi-vis shirt or vest for roadside work. Chainsaw users add chaps, a helmet with face shield, and cut-resistant gloves.
Equipment an entry-level laborer touches:
- Zero-turn and stand-on commercial mowers (Scag, Exmark, Wright).
- String trimmers (Stihl, Echo).
- Backpack blowers.
- Hedge trimmers.
- Hand tools: shovel, rake, pruners, loppers.
- Trailer: know the tie-down points and the ramp operation.
Safety specifics: never reach under a running mower, always shut down before unclogging a blade, use mower-deck ROPS (roll-over protection) and seatbelts on sloped sites, watch for underground irrigation when using a shovel, and call 811 before any digging.
Herbicide and fertilizer applications require a state-issued applicator license in most states. Pesticide-applicator training is paid by employers on a case-by-case basis.
Your first exercise
Find three landscaping employers in your area on Indeed or local job boards. Note starting pay, whether they run year-round (snow contracts keep northern crews employed all winter), and whether they offer irrigation or hardscape work (those pay more). If you have a clean driver license, mention it on your application. CDL Class B with airbrakes opens doors to bigger commercial trucks for snow and installation work.
Where to go next
Core skills: Lawn Care & Mowing, Irrigation System Installation, Tree Trimming & Arboriculture (Introduction to Tree Trimming & Arboriculture), Hardscape & Paver Installation (Introduction to Hardscape & Paver Installation). Crossovers: Heavy Equipment Operation for bigger machines, Workplace Safety, Hazardous Materials Handling (herbicides), Hand Tool Proficiency, and Power Tool Operation.