Landscaping crews do not buy skid steers for digging alone. They buy them because one machine moves through six different workflows a week without a trailer shuffle. These are the six, in the order they usually pay for the machine.
1. Rough and finish grading
Bucket grading plus a backdrag pass gives you a site-ready surface faster than a walk-behind box blade. On the Z470, the all-terrain tracks finish soft ground without rutting it.
2. Mulch, soil and gravel hauling
The bucket-and-fork combination moves tonnage across a site all day. Landscapers tell us the same thing every season: material handling is where the hours leak out of a job, and this is the leak it stops.
3. Hardscape base prep
Patios and walkways live and die by their base. Excavate, place and compact base stone with one machine - the dig is only a third of the job, and the skid steer does all three parts.
4. Fence and edging post installation
An auger drive turns post setting into a one-person job. Edging, fence lines, mailbox and sign posts - the machine pays for the auger in the first project.
5. Seasonal cleanups
Spring leaf-out and autumn leaf-fall, storm debris, snow: with a broom or blade on the quick attach, the machine that graded your patios in April clears your drives in December. Wheeled machines like the Z520 are kind to paved surfaces.
6. Tree, shrub and sod work
Ball-and-burlap planting holes, shrub removal, sod cutting and lifting - the thumb or grapple attachment turns delicate work into controlled work.
Which machine for a landscaping crew?
For mixed residential work, the compact tracked class - Z360 through Z470 - covers most sites without surface damage. Paved commercial work leans wheeled. Send us your typical site list and we will match the class and the starter attachment set.