No matter what part of the landscape industry you’re involved in, whether it is installing landscapes in new home construction, maintaining commercial properties, or running a nursery or retail garden center, you have materials that need to be moved and various tasks to complete. Outfitting a crew with compact equipment and attachments is the most efficient way for landscapers to work.
The most common types of compact equipment used by landscapers include loaders, such as skid steers, compact track loaders, mini track loaders, excavators and tractors. These machines come in various sizes to meet the needs of landscapers covering large areas or working between narrow lot lines. Attachments are what make these machines so popular; they make the machines versatile and useful for the duration of a job.
A typical landscape job may begin with land clearing; brush saws, rotary cutters, chippers and root grapples are just some of the attachments that quickly complete this task. When it comes to hardscaping, vibratory rollers, pallet forks and concrete pumps are useful attachments to have on hand. Planting trees with tree spades, augers and backhoes, and installing irrigation lines with trenchers and vibratory plows are labor-saving solutions to time-consuming work.
Turf installation is a task that has many phases. First, the area has to be prepped, which can be done with landplanes or landscape rakes. Soil conditioners are effective for grading and smoothing an area and preparing for seed. Seeders and sod layers finish up this phase.
Strict regulations on soil runoff require landscapers to clean up their jobsites. A silt fence installer can be used to stop runoff from carrying soil and debris into storm drains and waterways. Sweepers and angle brooms collect or brush away dirt and other debris from the jobsite and can be equipped with water kits to reduce dust.
Snow removal keeps many landscape companies going through the winter. Attachments on compact loaders clear and move snow from areas trucks can’t reach. These attachments include snow pushers, snow blowers and snow V-blades. Scrapers clear packed snow or ice, and spreaders distribute salt or sand for traction on cleared areas.
The combination of compact equipment and attachments make a landscaper more productive. Landscapers who use multiple attachments on their projects are able to do more with the labor force they have. Instead of having a crew of five dedicated to one job, a landscaper can have a crew of two and a crew of three on separate jobsites, and with a compact loader and attachments, those two crews will do twice as much work as a single crew. Attachments also maximize the versatility of any machine a landscaper owns. Landscapers can tackle new jobs with the same machine, thereby expanding their businesses, by adding new attachments.
