About This Career

Directly supervises and coordinates activities of workers engaged in landscaping or groundskeeping activities. Work may involve reviewing contracts to ascertain service, machine, and workforce requirements; answering inquiries from potential customers regarding methods, material, and price ranges; and preparing estimates according to labor, material, and machine costs.

This career is part of the Architecture and Construction cluster Maintenance/Operations pathway.

A person in this career:

• Establishes and enforces operating procedures and work standards that will ensure adequate performance and personnel safety.
• Schedules work for crews, depending on work priorities, crew or equipment availability, or weather conditions.
• Tours grounds, such as parks, botanical gardens, cemeteries, or golf courses, to inspect conditions of plants and soil.
• Monitors project activities to ensure that instructions are followed, deadlines are met, and schedules are maintained.
• Directs activities of workers who perform duties, such as landscaping, cultivating lawns, or pruning trees and shrubs.
• Inspects completed work to ensure conformance to specifications, standards, and contract requirements.
• Plants or maintains vegetation through activities such as mulching, fertilizing, watering, mowing, or pruning.
• Directs or performs mixing or application of fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, or fungicides.
• Trains workers in tasks such as transplanting or pruning trees or shrubs, finishing cement, using equipment, or caring for turf.
• Prepares service estimates based on labor, material, and machine costs and maintains budgets for individual projects.

Working Conditions and Physical Demands

People who do this job report that:

• You would often handle loads up to 50 lbs., sometimes up to 100 lbs. You will need a lot of strength at this level.
• Work in this occupation involves use of protective items such as safety shoes, glasses, gloves, hearing protection, a hard hat, or personal flotation devices
• Exposure to pollutants, gases, dust, fumes, odors, poor ventilation, etc.
• Conditions are very hot (above 90 F) or very cold (under 32 F)
• Work in this occupation involves using your hands to hold, control, and feel objects more than one-third of the time
• Exposed to hazardous equipment such as saws, machinery, or vehicular traffic more than once a month
• Sound and noise levels are loud and distracting
• Work in this occupation requires being outside most of the time
• Work in this occupation involves standing more than one-third of the time
• Work in this occupation involves walking or running more than one-third of the time

Working in this career involves (physical activities):

• Seeing clearly at a distance
• Seeing clearly up close
• Speaking clearly enough to be able to be understood by others
• Identifying and understanding the speech of another person
• Lifting, pushing, pulling, or carrying objects

Work Hours and Travel

• Weekend work