With great soil it is easy to nurture lovely lawns in Iowa.Photo: SD Dirk/Flickr
It’s pretty common to want your hard work to be appreciated and some areas tend to value services like lawn care and landscaping more than others.
An analysis of Google Trends conducted by LawnStarter has determined what regions care the most about lawn care and landscaping. Google Trends can view a percentage of all searches for terms such as “lawn care” in a certain timeframe and location to assign a search score to a geographic region.
The scores vary from one to 100 and from March 2012 to March 2017 the combined area of Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, Iowa City and Waterloo in Iowa were found to have the highest Google Trends score for “lawn care.”
As it turns out, all the top seven regions interested in searching “lawn care” are based in the Midwest.
“Iowa is blessed with some of the best soil in the world, which makes for nice golf courses and sports fields and beautiful lawns,” Randy Robinson, CEO of the Iowa Professional Lawn Care Association, told LawnStarter. “People in Iowa are very proud of having a good-looking lawn. You wouldn’t believe the amount of calls we receive in our office asking how they make their lawns look better.”
Here are the seven regions that search the most about lawn care and their Google Trends ranking:
- Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Iowa City and Dubuque, Iowa – 100
- Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek, Michigan – 98
- Des Moines and Ames, Iowa – 96
- Louis, Missouri – 95
- Peoria and Bloomington, Illinois – 92
- Omaha, Nebraska – 91
- Kansas City, Missouri – 90
As for those areas that are passionate about landscaping, the interest is spread out a little bit more with Bend, Oregon, showing up as the highest ranked based on Google Trends data.
The population of Bend’s metro area has grown by 1.8 percent from 2010 to 2015, which surpasses both Oregon and U.S growth rates, according to the Oregon Regional Economic Analysis Project.
“There is a significant amount of growth in this region and with that comes all of the new homes and businesses that need landscaping,” Amy Jo Detweiler, an associate professor of horticulture with the Oregon State University Extension Service, told LawnStarter. “Additionally, there is a large retirement community here that may want help maintaining their landscapes.”
The city’s desert climate calls for water-wise landscaping and many residents prefer low-maintenance landscapes as they are often outdoor enthusiasts who prefer to adventuring rather than caring for their landscapes during their downtime.
“A majority of the newer home developments have smaller lot sizes, so most landscapes have a little turf area with shrubs, trees and a few perennials,” Detweiler said.
Below are the top five regions that have searched the most for the term “landscaping” from March 2012 to March 2017 and their scores:
- Bend, Oregon – 100
- Green Bay and Appleton, Wisconsin – 74
- Cincinnati, Ohio – 72
- Youngstown, Ohio – 71
- Parkersburg, West Virginia – 70
