As we know Covid has changed so many things in our life, and it seems like the lawn maintenance industry is no exception. Like so many other businesses, they are trying to battle and take the right approach so that they can keep their businesses running.

When I asked former Ipswich Tiger Blake Emerson about how Covid 19 affected his freelance business which he runs with a number of employees, he said, “Well obviously we delayed this interview thing for a week so we are pretty damn busy.” Then I proceeded to ask him some other questions. He started to rattle off the answers which made me think that his business has been doing better than before the Covid scare of 2020. I asked him what is the most common type of job that his company has done since the initial Covid scare, and he replied with, “Either mowing lawns or stone work, because there have been so many people cooped up in their houses and they look out there window everyday and say to themselves, ‘Let’s shake things up a bit.’” 

The next question I asked him was how much his profit has increased since Covid without using numbers; and he said, “Almost double because people are staying home,” I proceeded to ask him one final question, If Covid never happened where do you think you would be here today with your business?” This question took him longer to answer, but he eventually said, “I don’t really know, I feel like we would be kind of in the same spot just with a little less money because most of our sales went up during the summer of Covid. So the first four months were kind of slow with Covid, and without Covid would have been better.” Knowing how Blake and his business had been doing well during Covid made me think that would come to a surprise since so many businesses have had to close permanently.

I then asked my neighbor Teddy Gray a few questions, as he lives in my neighborhood and mows a few people’s yards. I asked him if he has seen a shortage in business and he said, “Yes, a lot of people have more time on their hands so they would rather cut their own lawns rather than pay someone to do it.” Teddy didn’t seem to mind so much, though. When asked why, he told me it was because he wasn’t reliant on that income as he works his summers as a dock supervisor at the Ipswich Yacht Club. Losing a couple yards just gave him less to worry about. As you can see, Covid has changed businesses for better or for worse.