The landscape industry has received some interesting outsider attention over the past week. For starters is The Financial Times article about a potential merger between the industry’s two largest players: ValleyCrest Cos. and the Brickman Group. (Read our follow-up report on this topic with industry members’ reactions here.) Next comes a report from financial information company Sageworks, published by both Forbes and the Huffington Post.

“Business Is Blooming for Landscapers”
Forbes and Huffington Post (articles are the same)

Sales growth for landscape companies averaged 12 percent in 2013, up from 10 percent in 2012, according to the Sageworks report. The company collects, aggregates and analyzes data from private company financial statements it gets from accounting firms, banks and credit unions.

Profits also were up last year, Sageworks says, with net profit margins averaging 7 percent compared to less than 5 percent for the five previous years.

These figures match pretty closely with the numbers from the LM The Industry Pulse report, published in October. Our research showed anticipated revenue growth of 14 percent for 2013 over 2012. The greatest number of respondents reported profit margins of 5 percent to 9 percent (28.5 percent anticipated this level for 2013).