Lawn Care and Landscaping Trends in Recent American History

Lawn care and landscaping has become a hot property in the retail market again. Our yards have become a way to escape from our daily grind, our own vacation spots that don't require any travel time other than the opening of a door.  They've also become a status symbol in suburbia…that’s got the biggest and greenest lawn?  Which home has the most expensive and well groomed shrubbery?  If you forget to mow this week, your neighbors will be calling the community watchdog group.  How did lawn care and landscaping become so important that we're willing to drop thousands on it each year?

Blame The Parents Of The Boomers

After World War II, the parents of the Baby Boomer generation fled the cities of the United States and broke ground in more rural areas, which quickly became suburbia.  In the 1950's, it was the American Dream to have a little ranch house with a yard for the kids and lots of green grass.  Dad mowed said grass at night after he came home from his job in the city, or on the weekend; lawn care and landscaping became his new hobby.  Neighbors began competing against each other to have the best looking lawn, and they all gathered at the most fabulous one to barbecue and talk about lawn care and landscaping.  If your lawn wasn't perfect, you weren't perfect…and you didn't fit in.   

When the Boomers came of age, the Vietnam War had caused a division in this nation like no other.  They traveled more than their parents and weren't as quick to settle down and buy a house in suburbia, so lawn care and landscaping sales dropped. Though some folks remained faithful lawn care and landscaping simply had ceased being a priority and would remain as such until the Boomers' children started leaving the nest in the 1990's.

Enter Generation X

When the children of the Boomers began to buy up homes at a record pace and their parents suffered from empty nest syndrome, lawn care and landscaping raced to the forefront of the home and garden industry once again.  Not only were both generations cultivating their lawns, they had begun devising complex plans full of shrubbery, perennials, trees, fountains and ponds to landscape their yards.  Lawn care and landscaping became popular career choices and many folks have obtained degrees in the field and are making tons of cash in the industry today.  People began spending ridiculous amounts of money on the perfect accents for their yards, be it furniture, gazebos…the possibilities are limitless. Like the 1950s', if you live in suburbia these days your lawn and yard had best stand out and be impeccably groomed at all times lest you become the neighborhood outcasts.