Lawns, The Quiet Victims of Recession

August 2 -- Cautious consumers often look for places to cut, but one quiet victim of the recession has the opposite problem. Even amid recovery, lawns are often left untended.

“I just thought my money was being wasted,” said Dave Pilon, 42, director of sales at Bouvier Insurance in Connecticut. Mr. Pilon estimated he could save about $300 a year doing lawn treatments himself after he wasn’t impressed by professional services.

“My lawn absolutely ended up becoming a disaster,” he said, describing a yard taken over by crab grass in the past year. Mr. Pilon is signing a contract with another company for lawn seeding and maintenance, but will continue to mow his lawn as he has always done.

Landscapers like K and H Lawn Services said that since the recession, customers have been more conscious about cost and ask more frequently for quotes. Basic mowing for a 3,000 square-foot yard starts at $900 annually, according to Kris Hjort, K and H chief executive officer, but services like fertilizer applications cost extra.

The Virginia-based company maintains 600 residences weekly in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and has grown from 30 staff members in 2010 to 40. Starting last year, business finally started picking up with 7% to 8% growth in services, said Mr. Hjort. “People are coming back to professional lawn services and spending more money,” he said.

Tanya Ash, 46, a homeowner in Dublin, Ohio, switched to professional care two years ago after she decided her time was better spent working as an interior designer instead of mowing, but continued pruning on her own to save money.

“Quite honestly I thought was doing a great job doing it myself until the tree came down,” said Ms. Ash, who lost one of several trees on her quarter-acre yard after a recent storm. Ms. Ash spends $30 a week for mowing, but recently paid $1,000 for tree and shrub maintenance.

Stihl Inc., which manufactures power equipment including grass and hedge trimmers, has benefited from an expanding do-it-yourself crowd looking to take on smaller jobs like pruning and trimming. The company is on track for its third consecutive year of record turf-related sales since 2009. Roger Phelps, Stihl promotional communications manager, said homeowners are spending as much as 550 for professional trimmers instead of cheaper, consumer models.

Homeowners view professional equipment as investments they can pay off after a year or so of use, said Daniel Ariens, president and chief executive officer of Ariens Co., which produces mowers and snow blowers. During the recession, consumer sales jumped with homeowners opting for commercial mowers which cost $4,000 to $10,000 compared to consumer riding models that start at $1,000.

Ariens’ consumer demand has since grown at a slower pace, but commercial sales have continued rising, up 25% this year. “Consumers are slowly coming back to hiring landscape contractors,” said Mr. Ariens.

Landscapers, however, are cautious to reinvest as customers trickle back — repairing existing equipment and holding back on new orders, or purchasing cheaper models than in years past, he said. Ariens’ spare parts business has continued to grow since the recession.

In 2008, Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. saw business for its lawn service dip along with the economy. “As the economy has improved, our lawn service business has improved along with it,” said Jim King, vice president of corporate affairs at Scotts. Homeowners can apply the company’s lawn products themselves or hire Scott’s service, which costs three to four times more and has made modest gains in the last two years with more repeat customers.

Mr. King said Scotts has also remarketed its do-it-yourself fertilizer to reflect homeowners who no longer want “extra-perfect” lawns, but turf that’s “good enough.” Sales of the fertilizer have begun to rebound after years of decline.

“It doesn’t have to be the emerald-green envy of the neighborhood,” he said.

http://www.blogs.wsj.com/economics

Riding Mower Sales Predicted Up For 2010

We plant it, water it, fertilize it, cut it, stuff it into bags and then throw it away.

It's called grass. It is one of the least productive crops we grow. And we are increasingly doing it the easy way, on riding mowers.

Janet Shim, an analyst with Santa Monica, Calif.-based industry research publisher IBISWorld Inc., forecasts sales of riding mowers will be up 9.8 percent to $896.6 million in 2010.

She recently tripped across this little noticed trend while researching home improvement stores, such as The Home Depot and Lowe's.

She expects this retail group, overall, to post a 2.3 percent decline in sales for 2010. But one bright spot has been riding lawn mowers.

"People have been viewing riding mowers as an investment," Shim explained. "It adds curb appeal to their homes. It's an easy way to increase home values."

Indeed. Nothing says "I'm not making my mortgage payments anymore" like an overgrown lawn. The bank-owned home down the street can get away with it, but not you.

Shim speculates many Americans have gotten rid of their gardeners, landscapers and lawn servicers amid the sluggish economic recovery.

But they soon find out that mowing themselves is hard work. So they run to a home improvement store and plop down anywhere from $700 to $5,500 or more for a new riding mower.

Sales of push mowers, or walk-behind mowers, meanwhile, remain on the decline, Shim said.

"Baby boomers are driving this trend," Shim said. "They are seeking comfort while they mow the lawn."

Aging Baby Boomers are caught between distinct generations: Their parents, who once had to cut lawns with motor-less push mowers; and their children, who do not even know what a lawn mower is because operating one has yet to be effectively simulated by a popular video game.

Meantime, the grass keeps growing and someone has to cut it.

Marketers learned long ago that Baby Boomers will do anything if it somehow can be considered cool or artsy.

Riding mower maker John Deere leveraged this strategy perfectly in an advertising campaign during the March Madness college basketball season this year. It was dubbed "What will you create?"

The campaign featured South Carolinian Pearl Fryar who turned his lawn into a world renowned topiary garden by logging 1,200 hours on his John Deere lawn tractor.

Then there was former executive Larry Carlson of Bridgehampton, N.Y., who turned a five-acre potato field into "a work of art, complete with beautiful rustic gardens and a labyrinth."

Carlson looked like a guy who could afford to hire a landscaper, but he was doing it himself for his love of the art, you see.

The message: Time to get back in touch with the earth. Get yourself a cushy riding mower and cruise the rolling greens of your gated suburban spreads — if you haven't lost them to foreclosure, that is.

"Lawns are a status symbol," Shim said. "People judge your wealth or status by your lawn."

And where else can a man be free — to text and drive, to rage and drive, to drink and drive — than on his own lawn?

Where else can a woman — barefoot, pregnant and mowing the lawn — find more glamour and sophistication than on a Husqvarna?

There's nothing more invigorating than revving a Briggs and Stratton engine, buzzing the open space of your own backyard, smelling the fresh-cut grass, wind in your hair, sun on your back, whirling blades beneath your feet. The nation's unemployment rate be damned.

In a sluggish economic recovery like this, this could be the closest many of us will come to owning a yacht.

Al Lewis   www.denverpost.com