2023-2027 Market Expectations and Trends in Lawn & Garden Home Improvement Activities

When it comes to home improve­ment, what’s on the out­side is just as impor­tant as what’s on the inside. For home­own­ers, tak­ing care of their gar­dens and lawns is an impor­tant part of reg­u­lar main­te­nance and stew­ard­ship of their space.

But for these types of projects in par­tic­u­lar, there seems to be some­thing plea­sur­able about it that goes beyond habit or oblig­a­tion. A sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of home­own­ers enjoy the process of work­ing out­doors and the sat­is­fac­tion that comes from com­plet­ing a task. Addi­tion­al­ly, they feel more con­fi­dent about com­plet­ing these types of projects com­pared to cer­tain oth­er home repairs and improvements.

For that rea­son, they are involved more not only in doing out­doors projects, but also mak­ing all the pur­chas­es nec­es­sary to accom­plish that task.

Market Forecast and Industry Trends for Outdoor Project Purchases

The con­sumer, or DIY home­own­er, mar­ket for lawn and gar­den sup­plies, nurs­ery stock and soil treat­ments is sig­nif­i­cant­ly larg­er than the pro mar­ket. This is one area of home improve­ment where prop­er­ty own­ers are more prone to under­take their own DIY projects, repairs, and main­te­nance activ­i­ties. For exam­ple, about 49 per­cent of con­sumers do all the work on these types of projects themselves.

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Even still, con­sumer spend­ing for nurs­ery stock and soil treat­ments, as well as lawn and gar­den equip­ment and sup­plies, con­tin­ues to decrease in 2023 — a trend that start­ed in 2022. How­ev­er, both of these mar­ket seg­ments are expect­ed to recov­er over the next few years. Con­sumer spend­ing for nurs­ery stock and soil treat­ments is pro­ject­ed to grow to $26 bil­lion in 2027. The con­sumer seg­ment for lawn and gar­den equip­ment is pro­ject­ed to grow to $42.3 bil­lion in 2027.

For the pro­fes­sion­al side of the mar­ket, the dip in spend­ing in 2023 for nurs­ery stock and soil treat­ments is far less pro­nounced, and there should be a quick recov­ery in 2024, fol­lowed by growth through 2027. Lawn and gar­den pro­fes­sion­als are antic­i­pat­ed to spend approx­i­mate­ly $7.64 bil­lion by 2027. The lawn and gar­den equip­ment and sup­plies seg­ment for pro­fes­sion­als is also fore­cast­ed to expe­ri­ence steady growth from 2023 to 2027, up to $6.6 billion.

Consumer Behaviors and Activities for Products and Projects

For the most part, home­own­ers take on lawn and gar­den projects to help main­tain or repair their prop­er­ty. But there are sev­er­al psy­cho­log­i­cal ben­e­fits involved in the process that illus­trate why they choose to com­plete some or all of the work themselves.

For exam­ple, accord­ing to our 2021 Project Deci­sion Study, 39 per­cent of home­own­ers describe one of their top moti­va­tions as the sat­is­fac­tion that comes from a job well done, and 36 per­cent ref­er­ence the enjoy­ment that comes from work­ing on and car­ing for their own out­door liv­ing spaces.

Addi­tion­al­ly, con­sumers are moti­vat­ed by the desire to update their property’s aes­thet­ic or improv­ing the appear­ance. For a small­er sec­tor, there’s also some famil­ial and peer pres­sure — the idea of ​“keep­ing up with the Jone­ses,” or want­i­ng to remain on par with neigh­bors and friends when it comes to main­tain a tidy and attrac­tive lawn, gar­den, or landscape.

In terms of demo­graph­ics, old­er home­own­ers com­plet­ed more projects than younger home­own­ers in 2023, and this is an ongo­ing trend. Addi­tion­al­ly, those with a house­hold income of $100,000 to $159,000 com­plet­ed more projects than oth­er demo­graph­ics. This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the trend we’ve seen over the past few years with the main deci­sion mak­ers for prod­ucts and mate­ri­als being home­own­ers who skew old­er. It’s also impor­tant to note that, in terms of lawn and gar­den pur­chas­er atti­tudes, about 74 per­cent say they will make improve­ments to their home so they are able to stay there as they age. Addi­tion­al­ly, about 67 per­cent buy prod­ucts and mate­ri­als to help them main­tain a healthy home and 48 per­cent pre­fer to buy eco-friend­ly, sus­tain­able items.

The most com­mon projects — which account for more than half — include adding or replac­ing land­scap­ing or a gar­den and adding or remov­ing trees and shrubs. The medi­an spend­ing for these types of projects is about $300, although our fore­cast is that the medi­an spend­ing will increase lat­er this year.

About 50 per­cent of DIY­ers do all the work for a gar­den, yard or land­scap­ing project, and make all the pur­chase deci­sions on their own.

In gen­er­al, the time it takes for home­own­ers to plan a yard, gar­den or land­scape project and then com­plete it is short­er than the deci­sion-to-com­ple­tion cycle for oth­er home improve­ment projects.

How Should Product Manufacturers Respond to Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors?

For man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers of lawn and gar­den­ing prod­ucts and mate­ri­als, it’s use­ful to under­stand how and where pro­fes­sion­als and home­own­ers are mak­ing their purchases.

Accord­ing to HIRI’s 2022 Prod­uct Pur­chase Track­ing Study, many prod­uct cat­e­gories saw a slight 1 per­cent to 3 per­cent increase in pur­chase inci­dence from 2019 to 2022. These were list­ed as the most pop­u­lar products:

• Weed killers
• Gar­den hoses
• Grass seed
• Insecticides/​pesticides
• Stick tools (includ­ing rakes, hoes, shov­els, etc.)

Home cen­ters are over­whelm­ing­ly favored at the retail­er of choice, account­ing for 63 per­cent of pur­chas­es in land­scap­ing and gar­den­ing cat­e­gories. Non-store­front retail­ers cap­ture anoth­er 11 per­cent, with hard­ware and dis­count stores also respon­si­ble for 8 per­cent each.

In terms of pur­chase method, 73 per­cent of con­sumers will vis­it a phys­i­cal store to shop for gar­den, lawn, and land­scap­ing items, while 15 per­cent make pur­chas­es online and 12 per­cent do the buy­ing online and then pick up in-store.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the per­cent­age of cus­tomers shop­ping at two or more places to make pur­chas­es for their project has increased from 22 per­cent in 2014 to 36 per­cent. In fact, in 2022, only 64 per­cent of cus­tomers were mak­ing all of their pur­chas­es for a giv­en project from one retailer.

The main rea­son for this cross-retail­er shop­ping is that the ini­tial retail­er did not car­ry the col­or, style, or size of prod­uct that pur­chasers were look­ing for.

That being said, this is a depar­ture from what con­sumers want. About 68 per­cent say that they would pre­fer one-stop shop­ping for all their project needs, rather than hav­ing to go to dif­fer­ent stores.

For some man­u­fac­tur­ers, that could mean iden­ti­fy­ing what fea­tures are in demand among con­sumers and diver­si­fy­ing prod­uct devel­op­ment accord­ing­ly to respond to their pref­er­ences. For oth­ers, it might neces­si­tate work­ing more close­ly with retail­ers to find out where there are gaps or how to sup­ply items and mate­ri­als that sat­is­fy all their needs for a par­tic­u­lar lawn or gar­den project.

Gaining Insights on Garden, Lawn, and Landscaping Trends

If you’re look­ing for oth­er insights and data to help inform your deci­sions as a man­u­fac­tur­er, HIRI offers a wide range of research on mar­ket trends for land­scap­ing and gar­den­ing, as well as con­sumer behav­iors and atti­tudes when mak­ing pur­chas­es in these cat­e­gories. Watch for our upcom­ing 2023 Prod­uct Deci­sion Study, which will be released to HIRI mem­bers by Novem­ber 2023.

Inter­est­ed in becom­ing a mem­ber? Sim­ply sched­ule a consultation.