Individual trees and tree compositions provide a wide range of cultural ecosystem services, including playing a key role in defining urban character. In Hungary, urban landscape protection tools have recently been expanded, bringing the topic into the spotlight. However, the significance of natural elements (and particularly trees) in relation to the urban landscape is still under-researched. In this paper, using a novel methodology, the character-forming significance of trees and tree-compositional elements of historic gardens in Hungary that define the urban character is analysed and evaluated. The urban landscape protection tools that establish the current recognition of green elements within the urban landscape are also analysed. In addition, the spatial situations and characteristics making certain trees in historic gardens defining character elements within Hungarian settlements are studied. Reasons behind the lack of significant tree features in certain historic gardens, as well as the external and internal characteristics of tree elements that determine their visual impact have been categorised. The results reveal that visually important trees, while diverse, show distinct trends in terms of visibility and are subject to constant change. The results imply that a paradigm shift is necessary to maintain, design and regulate green infrastructure in relation to visually important trees.

Urban trees are an important part of urban image, character and cityscape, and the ecosystem services they provide have been extensively studied. However, years after the introduction of new urban image protection and urban design tools in Hungarian practice, the importance of individual trees is still a relatively obscure topic in research.In our research, we studied which individual trees are the most prominent within a study area in Southwestern Budapest using a perception-based method. 74 participants were asked to walk through the study area and choose a maximum of 10 individual trees that they considered the most impactful in their surroundings from an urban image standpoint. The results show that while a very wide variety of trees were chosen by at least one person, certain trees received significant amounts of votes, with some being selected by more that 20% of participants. Our results suggest that people with and without a professional background concerning trees had similar opinions, with some differences.Our research shows that -contrary to traditional, maintenance-centered tree evaluation methods -, the species and health condition of individual trees are less significant features from an urban image standpoint. On the other hand, location and contrast -in colour or form -are highly important.