We asked the owners and designers from six of the leading design/build firms in the U.S. to tell us the projects, materials and styles they’re seeing in the market. On the following pages, they share in their own words the impact of everything from Millennials to modernism, urban agriculture to ultra-high-end outdoor living, and small-scale gardens to sustainable landscaping. Read on to see what’s coming down the pike, and what your customers are going to be asking for this year.

Texas traditional

We did some research and proved that even though you’re hearing that modernism is kind of the way of the future from a lot of design professionals – be it architects, landscape architects, interior designers – that’s really not the case when you start looking at the trends.

We did a lot of research on who our clientele currently is and who our clientele of the future is going to be, and looking at the Millennials, Gen Xers and the Baby Boomers. We looked at where the majority of the work currently is, and where the majority of that work will be in the near-term future and where their thoughts are.

When you start looking at the trends of where Millennials and Gen Xers live versus the Baby Boomer generation, which is where most of our client base comes from, you see some real surprising trends. You think of younger people moving into the cities and living in apartments or townhomes, high rises and things of that nature. There’s said to be this trend, or at least this concept of a trend, that everybody’s going to be living in the inner cities and living a more modern lifestyle. There were some studies done by the Urban Land Institute that came out showing that the vast majority of our population today lives in suburban neighborhoods and that was almost 30 percent of our population.

“Our client base is going to continue to live in areas that have more land to landscape, and they have more of a traditional aesthetic.” Paul Fields, Lambert’s

And of that 30 percent, almost 20 percent of those were the Millennials. This notion that everybody’s going to be living in the city and they’re not going to have big landscapes, and they’re going to live a more modern lifestyle in terms of design trends is really not proving to be the case.

We started doing some research on why. It seems that the design professional – the design community as a whole – is wanting to take our population toward a more modern design aesthetic, and no one really knows why that’s the case.

Looking at trends in design, it seems like for the foreseeable future, our client base is going to continue to live in areas that have more land to landscape, and they have more of a traditional aesthetic when it comes to their design sensibilities.

– Paul Fields, Lambert’s

Massachusetts modern

We primarily deal with high-end residential projects. I’d probably lean more modern. The lines seem to be getting a little bit cleaner in a lot of the designs. Especially with a lot of the water features, those are incorporating runnels into walkways, into pavements – the idea of water traveling in more modern, straight-line styles.

We’re using a lot of reclaimed granites where possible. One material specified a lot more that is difficult for us to find is wood items out of black locust. You have your ipe, you have your mahogany, but we’re seeing landscape architects specify black locust benches or a black locust gate.

“The lines seem to be getting a little bit cleaner in a lot of the designs.” Will Makela, R.P. Marzilli

– Will Makela, R.P. Marzilli

Divergent markets

Within in the city, we’re seeing a lot of smaller housing developments. Mostly it’s almost street-to-street, sidewalk-to-sidewalk construction without really any room for landscape. Its multi-housing projects. They’re not the low-end, they’re medium-end.

We’re starting to see some real density in those types of housing. What that offers for us is a big trend in container gardens. They still want a garden on their patios and they still want to have a nice green space, but they just do it differently.

In retail, as well as landscapes, there’s a lot more smaller-space landscaping opportunity right now in our market. That also opens up areas where there are landscaped areas in a smaller plot for the use of smaller trees. We don’t sell large trees anymore. Rarely do we sell large trees. The trend is really to the medium-size or the smaller tree. Magnolias or the stewartias, the Japanese maples – those are the trees that are moving. The larger maples, the bigger-growing trees – we’re not inventorying and we’re not moving those in our garden centers.

“There’s a lot more small-space landscaping opportunity in our market right now.” David Snodgrass, Dennis’ 7 Dees

Having said that, though, we still see plenty of new housing starts that are out in the suburbs and they’re on estate property, and as our urban growth boundary expands, then we see these larger estates expand as well. If anything, I see a trend in those larger 5-acre parcels where they’ll landscape the whole thing, put a nice big house on a 5- to 10-acre parcel and they’ll do a 5-acre landscaping. They want all the bells and whistles and tricks, and the lighting and water features.

– David Snodgrass, Dennis’ 7 Dees

Blended styles

Generation X and Y, they’re moving out of the city to the outskirts of the city. We have a lot of developments that are similar to what David (Snodgrass) said out there – property line to property line development. They’re living tiny. They want small patches of green, possibly vegetable gardens, but they’re going vertical with that – some of that is vertical, some of that is up two stories.

We still have those Baby Boomers and Generation X customers moving into the suburbs, developing 5-acre estates. Of course they want to expand their family and keep to their compound, if you will, so they put in all the amenities you could ever want. So they’re actually taking less time away from their homes as opposed to minimalist landscaping it and going other places to enjoy that.

Who’s driving it? I’m not exactly sure, but I can tell you better than 60 to 70 percent of the information that’s brought to us by our clients is trending toward that modern (aesthetic). Even if it’s more of a historic home in Denver that has to stay historic, they’re going to blend some modern element into that. That seems to be the prevailing architecture here, so the landscape architecture is kind of falling behind that.

A lot of our clients are more into the natural stones, but I do see a trend for more concrete pavers, the Belgards of the world. They have these contemporary, modern lines that they are producing now, and clients are moving toward combination with natural stone. We do a lot of pre-cast limestone – whether that be fireplaces, fire pits, mantels, caps, pool copings.

We do quite a bit of lighting out here in Denver. We are seeing a trend in new technologies that are programmable and dimmable and zonable. People are paying the additional cost to get the most out of that function. We’re really seeing everything integrated now. Everything’s about technology. There’s hardly a project that doesn’t have a smart system on it, whether that’s lighting, irrigation, audio/visual.

“There’s hardly a project that doesn’t have a smart system on it, whether that’s lighting, irrigation, audio/visual.” Adam Hallauer, Designs by Sundown

I’m seeing a huge spike in natural wood products. It’s more of the ipes.There’s a new product that’s a type of bamboo for pool decks and art panels. Locally, we do a ton of different art panels that are made out of metal. They might be perforated, they might be corrugated, they might be cut out for shade structures.

– Adam Hallauer, Designs by Sundown

Instant gratification

We’re seeing some substantial trends – Ten to 15 years ago outdoor kitchens were a real novelty thing. Now it’s a standard item, and so is a pool and so is a pool house. Our client base is very liquid and they have that need for instant gratification. So you can present a $1-million plan, and after three or four meetings, they’re like, ‘OK, let’s do it. Let’s get it done.’ Very rarely do we plant a tree that’s under 5-inch caliper. We plant 18- and 20-foot evergreens fairly regularly.

People are a lot more conscious now about being green. They like to use the word sustainability. We still get significant projects every year that are very green-oriented, and the customers feel very responsible to the environment. So that puts us in a situation to use as many natural materials as we can, a lot of native plants, and that’s a whole different world.

On some of the larger properties on the Eastern Shore in Maryland, they have to do a reforestation before they can do an ornamental landscape. They might have to plant 100 or 200 inch to inch-and-a-half trees and native shrubs before they can even consider doing an ornamental landscape around the property.

“We still get significant projects every year that are very green-oriented.” Kevin McHale, McHale Landscape Design

We’re seeing a shift in our market from bluestone and field stone, where people are going with travertine and limestone. Porcelain tile is becoming a pretty popular tile for outdoor patios. The durability of it is unbelievable. The composites for arch structures, for decks and things, have come a long way. They’re now more stable and more aesthetic than they were before.

– Kevin McHale, McHale Landscape Design

Outdoor living maxes out

The word ‘sustainability’ in the Memphis, Tennessee, market is becoming more prevalent. We are also really seeing a tremendous increase in the interest in urban agriculture – vegetable production in raised planters. We’re not talking about row crops; we’re talking about containers. I think that we’re going to try to position ourselves to promote and continue to promote that. That’s the next wave of what we’re doing.

The outdoor kitchen has become a standard amenity, but now they’re looking at what they can add to that outdoor kitchen, which is audio/video and container gardening, where they can actually prepare herbs or whatever they’re going to use in their outdoor pizza oven. We do some really high-end, state-of-the-art swimming pools, so there’s a lot of technology that we’re offering – materials, tile selection, glass tiles, color combinations, new plasters that are gaining momentum in popularity.

– Michael Hatcher, Michael Hatcher & Associates

Is vacation just a dream? Is “trip” a four-letter word? Can you imagine getting away from your business to refresh, or does the work involved to take time off create more stress?

Lawn & Landscape surveyed green industry owners and learned that 82 percent take vacations. That means the majority of you are enjoying a break from your business – and you’ve got systems in place to make this happen.

This month, we talked to three owners who share how they vacation and why getting away is beneficial personally and professionally.

Before Shawn LaRue started Horticultural Services Group, he was the hard-working branch manager of a ValleyCrest operation in Destin, Florida. When the company’s founder and green industry visionary Burt Sperber would come to town, sometimes LaRue picked him up from the airport.

“I got to spend one-on-one time with him, and one question I asked was, ‘What would you do differently, being a very successful person in this business?’” LaRue says. “He didn’t hesitate. He said, ‘If I had to go back, I would have taken more vacations, spent more time with family.’”

That insight influenced the way LaRue decided to run his life and business. “As a business owner, you’re never done,” he says. “There is always something that is demanding your attention. It’s really about what your perspective is and what you prioritize.”

Photo courtesy of Shawn Larue

LaRue determined when he started his company, he would build an organization that gave him flexibility and the lifestyle he wanted to live, which included abundant travel. He and his wife maintain a bucket list of destinations they’d like to visit.

Every year, they cross off some of those locations. Last December, it was Spain. This June, the family, including two children ages 11 and 14, will spend 20 days in Europe. This trip has been a long time in the making, LaRue says.

Of course, leaving the business isn’t easy. And LaRue has found out the hard way what the wrong people can do while you’re gone. Last year, the business was going through a difficult transition after an irrigation manager left and took his apprentice with him. LaRue was left with no one in mid-August.

“Irrigation people are hard to come by at that time of year, so I pulled the trigger on a guy who was a bad apple,” LaRue says. “I didn’t do a background check, I just did an interview and he seemed to know his stuff. I spent a few days with him, and then I took off on vacation.”

This was not a vacation the family could postpone. LaRue’s wife’s family had been planning a reunion in Chicago for some time. But while LaRue was away, the new irrigation manager bad-mouthed LaRue’s business and attempted to steal customers.

“I have a good relationship with my customers, and one of them actually called me to tell me what he was doing,” LaRue says. “When I got back from the trip I had to cut him loose.”

But LaRue doesn’t regret the decision to go on the trip. “Ten years from now, I’ll remember that vacation but I won’t remember all that crap that went on,” he says.

“We all got to go to Chicago and we had never been there before. It was an experience.”

Systems keep the ship running while LaRue is out. And supervisors are empowered to make decisions during vacation times, and any time.

“We want them to be in a position to make decisions on the fly as they need to make sure we can respond quickly to customers’ needs,” he says.

During vacation, LaRue checks email once a day. “I set up a message to let people know I’m on vacation, and I leave the number of one of our guys in case there is an emergency,” he says.

Unplugging is not easy. “Getting back is always tough, but it is what it is,” LaRue says.

Because at the end of the day, LaRue is working to enjoy life. “At some point, you have to decide, ‘Why am I working this hard if I don’t have anything to show for it?’” he says. “If you go about business this way, you’ll grow old and wonder where all the time went.”

Being away from the business for some time during vacation gives you an opportunity to refresh, revisit the way you do things and collect ideas from other places that might work in your own operation.

Sometimes “aha” moments happen on the beach. That was the case for Wendell Furtick, president and CEO of Saluda Hills Landscapes in Lexington, South Carolina. Every year, his family vacations with some college friends and their families. Years ago, Furtick was sharing his frustration about an administrative staff member whom he really liked, but who was not performing as expected.

Furtick had a wake-up call. “My friend said, ‘Look, Wendell, there are a lot of people out there who can do what you need and do it right, and you are not helping out this person or your business if you continue down this road,’” he says.

Photo courtesy of Wendell Furtick

While working in the business, Furtick was just too close to the situation to think about the big picture. That honest discussion was just what he needed. When he talked to the employee, both agreed the arrangement wasn’t working out for anyone. “We went on to hire a person who was overqualified and during the following years helped grow the business a lot,” Furtick says.

Fresh perspective is a beautiful thing for business. But getting a break to press the reset button requires planning and a business structure that promotes accountability. If the owner is the only one making decisions, leaving the operation will be difficult, Furtick says.

Throughout the year, Furtick reinforces information flow from clients to property managers and supervisors who actually touch properties weekly. “We want to make sure property managers are contacting our superintendents to get problems resolved and we built our company so people at the lowest possible levels are making as many decisions as possible,” he says.

“We built our company so people at the lowest possible levels are making as many decisions as possible.” Wendell Furtick, president and CEO

If an employee comes to Furtick with an issue, he helps problem solve and encourages the team member to consider how he or she would handle the issue. Giving your people the power to make decisions takes practice. It’s not something you can put in place right before vacation.

Before trips, Furtick huddles with managers to discuss projects that are open. “There are two sides of the planning,” he says. “There is the financial planning, because we are a small business and cash flow is the lifeblood. So we want to make sure we are shored up on our accounts payables and bills that will come due while we are gone.

“And, there is operations planning, and we have good leadership in each of our divisions who have their own teams to hold accountable, so they are empowered to make decisions to run their own divisions.”

Saluda Hills is set up so information flows from the bottom up. Hopefully, issues are resolved before they rise up to Furtick.

“Our managers are a real good firewall and handle things in their arenas,” he says. “We have a great team. That’s the only way I can take a vacation.”

Vacation for Rick Hodges is not defined as a trade show in a warm location, or a seminar at a hotel with a swanky pool. He prefers to completely escape from the business, and when he does he can unplug from what’s happening at Baseline Landscapes back at home in Portland, Oregon.

“We have children and we want to provide opportunities for them to break away from their routine, so we build vacation in our family structure more than we do our company structure,” Hodges says.

Photo courtesy of Rick Hodges

Time off amounts to up to three weeks a year, with one weeklong vacation generally scheduled in February when the business is slower. Hodges takes mini-breaks throughout the year. Long weekends are easier to plan for and means less time away – and that was the ideal scenario when Hodges was newer in the business.

“I had more energy then and I wanted to keep my finger on the pulse of what was going on,” he says. “But over time, as you develop your employees and you have that core group of people, you can take longer periods of time away,” he adds.

For Hodges, that means having a few good men. His older sons work in the business and serve in a management capacity, overseeing the shop and helping other crewmembers. That said, Hodges is careful that his other employees do not feel “micromanaged by my kids” while he is out of town, and there is an established trust between Hodges and all of his people. “Our guys have never let us down,” he says.

But that’s because they understand Hodges’ expectations. Before he leaves for a vacation, he sits down with the team and reviews projects that are open and what tasks must take place while he’s gone. He also contacts customers, which are primarily residential, and lets them know he’ll be out of the office. “We don’t want anyone to have any surprises,” he says. Most clients reply with, “No problem.” All of them know who to call when Hodges is gone.

Hodges says he can vacation from the business – completely turn off and refresh – because he trusts the people back home will handle any issues that could arise. Having only one go-to leader to rely on when you’re gone can be risky, he adds.

“What if that guy goes down? What if he gets sick? It can’t be just one guy,” he says. “I have three core guys that I meet with ahead of time, and that is how you get the freedom.”

With 62 percent of contractors saying they’ve had to turn down jobs due to hiring and retention difficulties, it’s clear there are staffing issues in the green industry. One way to make your company more attractive to current and potential employees is to develop a training program. Follow these 11 steps to create an effective one.

1. SENIOR LEADERSHIP “BUY-IN”

For any internal training program to succeed, the most important component is senior management “buy-in.” When installing a training program you may actually need to create a whole new culture around learning. Senior management needs to show a unified front and distribute training opportunities throughout the organization. This is how corporate standards for quality can be established and maintained.

2. BUDGET

When you look into companies rated “the best” you consistently find they have a healthy budget for training. When a company feels they cannot find any money for training, it is obvious they have not calculated the cost of re-work, lost jobs, customers not renewing, turnover, etc. Although difficult to measure, training is a money saver. In the landscape industry it is hard to get people to commit the time to train. Both money and time must be budgeted.

3. ACCOUNTABILITY, SYSTEMS, GUIDELINES

All individuals up and down the organization need to be held accountable for training. In order to be fair, a company needs a system to ensure everyone in similar positions is offered the same training opportunities. Companies will have to decide:

1. If they will pay the participants for time spent in training
2. Who will approve the content
3. Who will deliver the training
4. The time and place of the training
5. How the effectiveness of the training will be measured

4. NEEDS ANALYSIS

For a complete training program, it’s best to start out with a comprehensive training needs analysis. This includes:

• A targeted, confidential employee skills and training needs survey.
• Interviews with groups and individuals from senior management to crew members that are often done through site ride-alongs.

5. STANDARDIZATION

Most successful training implementations start with programs to standardize management practices and field techniques, for both Anglo and Hispanic employees, getting everyone on the same page.

6. TRAIN THE TRAINER(S)

Many landscape trainings fail because they are not customized to a variety of learners. Most landscape professionals are “kinetic learners.” They learn best by touching and doing. Auditory and visual learners are usually contented in “classroom” style learning. When you have Generation Y young folks with Baby Boomers in the same group, the trainer needs experience and skills in meeting people where they are. All programs are ideally available in English and Spanish at different levels.

7. CORE TRAINING

Every company will determine what it considers its core programs. For example, one core training for pro-active companies is “Discipline with Dignity.”

1. Standardize disciplinary practices Employees need to feel the company is fair. Sometimes in one branch an employee might do something and get suspended, yet in another branch the same violation will be ignored.
2. Train everyone on the work improvement process When you make it simpler and clearer for supervisors and managers to know what to do in disciplinary situations, they will execute. Without training, many managers are unsure of themselves and lack the confidence to deliver discipline. Some companies pre-determine consequences. Others handle each situation separately. Standardization of consequences is essential both for fairness and legality.

8. TRAINING COORDINATOR POSITION

In companies that can afford a training coordinator position, the company will need a customized training coordinator job description and the right questions to interview candidates. Once in place, the training coordinator will help develop, deliver, schedule, track and assess the ROI from training. They will work with subject matter experts to design training programs to enhance skill sets at all levels.

9. CONSULTANTS

For the initial start-up of a training program, you may need the help of consultants. Be sure to ask what they know about adult learning principles, organizational structures and the landscape industry.

10. EXECUTIVE/ MANAGEMENT COACHING

For the maximum impact, training programs need to be coordinated with executive/management coaching. The executives’ role is to assist managers in coaching their people for better work performance, to resolve conflict and to motivate.

11. MEASUREMENTS OF TRAINING IMPACT

Some of the ways used to measure the impact of your training efforts would be:

1. Time certain tasks before and after training.
2. Survey the overall morale and level of employee satisfaction.
3. Look for better quality sites:
Increased revenue
• Fewer call-backs
• Fewer customer complaints
• More customer compliments
• Higher customer satisfaction
• Higher employee satisfaction
• High client and employee retention

Entrepreneurs are interesting characters. They tend to thrive on chaos. It’s the fuel that empowers their engine, so to speak. I like to refer to them as “chaos junkies.” They realize that chaos provides opportunity. It’s their job to face the chaos and make order out of all of the craziness. They not only see things differently but they also think differently. While most individuals flee from chaos and seek safe harbors, the entrepreneur, like a surfer catching a 40-foot wave, seeks it out and rides it to shore.

The late management guru Peter Drucker taught us the difference between leaders (entrepreneurs) and managers in his classic book, “The Effective Executive.” Managers, he said, make sure things get done right. Leaders, on the other hand, make sure the right things get done.

It’s all about perspective and priorities. Leaders focus on effectiveness while managers focus on efficiency. It’s the difference between strategic and tactical issues. I often use the terms big picture vs. little picture to distinguish between the two.

Anecdotal statistics.

Over the past thirty years, I’ve noticed that approximately 12 percent of green industry contractors reach $1 million in annual sales. Roughly 2 percent reach $5 million in annual sales. Amazingly, about 75 percent of all green industry contractors have annual sales of $500,000 or less.

Question: Why do so few green industry contractors make it to $1 million in annual sales?

Answer: They think differently.

How it works in the field.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that entrepreneurs should only think about the big picture and ignore the daily minutia that’s involved in running a business. Effective executives build a high-performance team that requires minimal supervision to take care of the details. Notice that I didn’t say “no” supervision but “minimal” supervision.

They build an effective management team that takes care of all of the daily minutia (operations, ordering, scheduling, accounting, payroll, etc.). This allows entrepreneurs to concentrate on strategic issues such as: building the team (recruiting, hiring, training, etc.), building the systems (accounting, job costing, career paths for staff) and monitoring future threats and opportunities.

This is where well-thought out job descriptions are needed. Everyone in the organization, including the CEO, should have a thorough job description tied to the remuneration for the position in question. Most important, everyone in the organization should be able to perform their job description with minimal supervision. If they can’t perform their assigned job description, they may need additional training.

Or they may simply be the wrong person for the job. According to Jim Collins, author of “Good To Great,” it’s your job to get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus and the right people in the right seats. Collins goes on to say that the CEOs studied in “Good To Great” spent approximately 50-60 percent of their time building their teams. Get the right people on the bus and in the right seats, and the bus goes merrily on its way.

today’s market.

I’m not saying that it’s easy, especially in today’s market. Hiring, training and maintaining good staff is the most difficult task that you face today. Virtually every entrepreneur that I worked with in 2015 echoed this fact. Labor is the number one most challenging issue being faced in today’s market place. That’s why you have to understand that the majority of your time must be spent building and maintaining your team.

You need to learn to think and respond differently if you and your business are going to grow in spite of the craziness of today’s labor market. You need to learn to be a chaos junkie and thrive on chaos. Interestingly, this was the theme of Tom Peter’s 1987 blockbuster book, “Thriving On Chaos.“

Opportunity awaits.

Philip B. Crosby wrote in, “Quality is Free,” “Good things happen only when planned. Bad things happen on their own.” This is so true. It’s a new year and time to plan for success. To do so, you need to think differently. You also need to re-think everything. It’s time to re-engineer your thinking and then your planning.

If you haven’t done so, read (or listen to) “The Effective Executive,” “Thriving On Chaos,” “Good To Great” and “Quality Is Free.” Learn how to think like Drucker’s effective executive. Become a chaos junkie like Peters suggests. Learn to thrive on chaos and realize that it breeds opportunity. Listen to Collins when he tells you to spend more time building your team. Be proactive and plan for good things to happen.

The good news is that 2016 will contain as much (and probably more) chaos than 2015. The better news is that the New Year will bring even more opportunity than 2015 – that is if you are prepared to recognize and take advantage of it. Happy New Year!