Glimpsing into the Future

Brooke Inzerella on Living in the Present While Planning for the Future

As we begin another new year, we’re compelled once again to predict what this new year will bring. It’s funny, though, isn’t it? Typically, at no other time during the year do we feel challenged or expected to predict what the next 12 months will be like. But something about a fresh, new calendar gives us the desire to predict the future. Something I’ve never really been great at. And after the past two years we’ve had, I’ve resolved myself to the fact that I’m better suited to dealing with the here and now and probably should leave the prognostication to others. I’ll be the first to admit that my “predictions” for the industry, and my business in particular, were off a little in 2021. In the end, we had a record year designing and installing residential landscapes, 

pools and outdoor living environments, and that was not really something I expected to happen.  Revenues were at an all-time high, even though we are still trying to conquer a world-wide pandemic and the aftermath of ravaging weather events.  So coming into this year, I decided to enlist opinions from a few colleagues while on a vendor-sponsored fishing trip in south Louisiana.  I thought it would be interesting to see where our opinions overlapped and where they diverged and to find out who was the most right  (and wrong) when we regroup next November!  

So here are the predictions:

1. Larry* is a regional sales rep for an irrigation supply company. While we both agree that 2021 was a great year for both residential and commercial landscaping, he believes that residential work will level off and slow down in 2022 while commercial and municipal work will increase. Personally, I believe residential work -- especially turnkey, all encompassing outdoor spaces -- will continue to rise this year. People may be heading back to the office for work, but they don’t want to lose that connection to home.  My pipeline on the residential side is actually stronger than ever.
2. Mo* works for a national landscape supply wholesaler and he believes that there will be huge gains and improvements in technology. He thinks customer-facing tech, like wi-fi driven transformers and controllers and weather programs for irrigation systems, will become even more user friendly and standard. Whereas I believe technology advancements are more likely to continue at their current, steady level, he believes in a more rapid rise this year.
3. Curly* owns and operates a commercial and residential landscape company that is very similar in size and scope to mine and our predictions were similar.  We both predict another year of shortages in supplies and materials and unfortunately lots of movement in cost of goods.  We both experienced labor shortages in 2021 and believe that will continue in the new year, but are both hopeful to a lesser extent. On the bright side,  we both have more work lined up for this year so we’re optimistic that the clients will be there and we’ll just have to continue to face sourcing challenges head on as we had to do in 2021.
    

As for me, I predict that customers will continue to want to beautify their homes’ outdoor environments. My clients are requesting more edibles in their landscaping, want more sustainable and native choices, and are gravitating once again toward more organic and less symmetrical designs. Although I didn’t catch much fish that weekend, I did return home relaxed, refreshed and knowing that no matter what the year 2022 throws our way, we’re all in this together.

 *names have been changed to protect identities in case their predictions end up way off base.

ABOUT

Brooke Inzerella is a licensed landscape horticulturist and owner of Horticare Landscape Company in Lafayette, Louisiana.
www.horticarelandscape.com