Talent Trends for 2026: How Landscape Companies Are Approaching Recruiting

For many in the landscape industry, finding skilled labor remains one of the primary business challenges they face. However, there have been improvements in recruiting efforts as owners have found that a mindset shift is the first step to remedying the situation.

“The last few years, we’ve been focused a lot more on what we can do to be clearer about what our real hiring need is, and focusing on how we can best fill that specific hiring need, and we have been doing pretty well by doing that,” Mick Mulhall, president of Mulhall’s, based in Omaha, Nebraska. “I think the more time we can reallocate from worrying about macroeconomic issues and focusing on hiring people excited to do the work that we do with us, I think the more successful we have been and will be.”

Patrick Murray, co-founder of Local Roots Landscaping, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, encourages other companies to check their beliefs first because if they already assume they won’t find the people they need, they will never see them.

“What I used to think was, ‘I’m not capable of finding and building a really solid and strong team with skilled people,” Murray says. “So, then my expectations were that I would never see them on Indeed. I would never find them anywhere. So then in my actions, I didn’t even bother interviewing or at interviews, I would show up unprepared, and then my outcome was I didn’t build that team. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Murray says that while it is typically challenging to find already qualified workers, they have adapted by training up inexperienced individuals.

Current Challenges

Dennis Evans, owner of Quiet Village Landscaping, based in St. Louis, Missouri, notes that while they conduct extensive training to promote from within, the demand for lawn care, plant health care and irrigation services has outpaced what they can do internally. 

Jennifer Thomas, director of recruiting, onboarding & culture for Southern Botanical, Inc., based in Dallas, Texas, says finding experienced workers has been their biggest challenge as well, specifically on the commercial side.

Meanwhile, Carrie Velkover, chief human resources officer for Visterra Landscape Group, headquartered in Rosemont, Illinois, says they are focused on finding and retaining their talent so they can build a stable, growth-minded workforce that supports succession planning and reduces cost pressure.

Mulhall says his biggest challenge isn’t the traditional labor shortage but growing the business fast enough to maintain opportunities for all of the talent they have attracted.  

Stabilizing, Not Solved: The State of Today’s Workforce

In general, these companies have noted that the workforce shortage seems to have stabilized in their areas. Murray says it has become easier for them to recruit and hire at this point. Evans notes they’ve seen an uptick in job applicants depending on the role, pay and time of the year.

“It seems as if young people entering the workforce actually appreciate the outdoors and work-life balance this industry has to offer, which is very encouraging,” Evans says.

Mulhall says they tend to receive five to 10 new applications a week, as they have invested a lot over the past five years into their company culture.

“I could complain about immigration policy or something, or the work ethic of the next generation, but at the end of the day, thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands of people, are landscaping every day in Omaha,” Mulhall says. “I need less than 200. I don’t have a macroeconomic problem myself. I have a 10 more landscapers problem.”

Even when they are short-staffed, landscape companies aren’t willing to sacrifice their standards and company culture by keeping a poor performer on the team.

“In order to protect our culture of high performance along with team camaraderie, poor employees just do not last long within our teams,” Evans says. “It really has become a self-selecting group, which has been fun to see and something we are very proud of.”

Mulhall says focusing on their long-term culture instead of short-term operational objectives has positively affected their retention.

“Despite the conversation around workforce shortages, we’re probably even more willing to separate with team members who are either not the right person or in the right seat in our company,” Mulhall says.

Hiring Pressure Points and Solutions

Velkover says their field positions remain the hardest to fill, but their administrative and professional talent pools have become more predictable and easier to maintain. She explains the demands of outdoor work, seasonality and declining interest in that type of work make it more challenging to find field workers.

“Office and administrative roles tend to fill fastest at Visterra,” Velkover says. “Our strong growth trajectory attracts individuals who want to join a growing company and industry early on. Being part of our expansion story offers real career potential and excitement.”

Meanwhile, for Local Roots and Quiet Village, hiring field staff has been the easiest for them as of late.

“We made a big effort in building an amazing career ladder that we stand by with many people within the organization who are examples,” Evans says. “This allows us to show there is a lot more to this industry than mowing lawns or building walls. You can take many different routes in order to better your life. This has been a big differentiator when someone is looking to join a company.”

Evans says it is the field managers who are harder to find. While they love to promote from within, it does take time for their team members to learn how to be great managers.

Murray says their sales positions are the most difficult to fill.

Thomas says they face challenges finding arborists, but for general landscaping roles, they have a steady stream of applicants.

“I think the one advantage that Southern Botanical has is that we are still privately owned, and so a lot of individuals are interested in being in a company that is not, whether it’s public or private equity backed,” Thomas says. “That’s really giving us a bit of an advantage.”

Thomas adds their reputation, stability, culture and growth attract individuals who are looking for a place where they can grow and belong.

One thing Mulhall has noticed is that when they are recruiting for a role that they themselves aren’t excited about, it’s much harder to attract candidates.

“If we don’t have that story to tell prospective employees, if we’re not really excited, and they can’t get excited about that with us, then it’s really hard,” Mulhall says. “I think it’s human nature when things are really hard to point the finger outward more than at ourselves, but I think if we really look at the last five years, our biggest struggles come from the things that we’re probably not super excited about ourselves.”

Depending on the role, the time it takes to hire new employees varies greatly. Evans says it takes them one to three weeks to hire field staff, while it’s three to six weeks for office staff. Similarly, Murray says it takes them 10 to 14 days to find new staff members.

Both Mulhall and Thomas say they can hire crew members in a week, while leadership roles take more time.  

“We really work on finding the right fit,” Thomas says. “We don’t want to settle, even if they’ve been open a while. We’ll continue to look, but I don’t think our time to hire has gone up significantly this year. We’re focused on the right fit, the right hire.”

Being proactive in recruiting has been the key for landscape companies entering the spring season fully staffed.

“It’s something we manage weekly,” Mulhall says. “I think that our team has done an incredible job these last few years executing to our hiring plan.”

Evans credits hiring their full-time HR director, who helps keep recruiting efforts top of mind. Velkover says they have shifted their hiring calendar earlier and focused on strengthening sourcing and referral pipelines to avoid starting the season slightly under-staffed.

Thomas says Southern Botanical utilizes the H-2B program to ensure they are fully staffed before spring, as well as actively recruiting.

“We definitely have proactive recruiting across the board for all of our other positions in advance,” Thomas says. “It takes a lot of coordination, but our teams really work to plan ahead and our recruiting teams work with the hiring managers to work hard to make sure we’re set up for success.”