Gardens and the Bush: Gardeners’ Attitudes, Garden Types and Invasives

Abstract

Garden plants that invade native vegetation can be a threat to native ecosystems. The species composition of gardens near the bush in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia is shown to relate to environmental variation and the attitudes of gardeners to their recreation, to native plants and to the bush. Four types of gardens are discriminated: the species‐poor shrub garden; the local native garden; the woodland garden; and the gardenesque. A group of gardeners who valued functional gardens, and the hard work in creating a garden, largely produced gardenesque outcomes. A strongly conservationist group of gardeners had native, woodland or shrub gardens. A group of gardeners who valued romance and privacy largely had woodland gardens. A small group of gardeners who liked gardens to create themselves, and preferred to minimize the act of gardening, tended to the shrub garden outcome. Plant species that invade the bush are least frequent in the more manicured shrub and gardenesque styles of garden than in the more informal local native and woodland gardens, in a dissonance between expressed attitudes and outcomes. Most of the most invasive weeds in the bush are shown to be independent of their occurrence in adjacent gardens, suggesting that integrated control programs involving both all gardeners within dispersal range, and bush managers, are necessary. The existence of a small number of respondents who see benefits in environmental weeds in their gardens, suggests that such programs would be ineffective without regulation, a solution offered by no respondent. However, regulation might be ineffective without community understanding, the raising of which was the main solution suggested by the interviewed gardeners.

Native and exotic woody vegetation communities in domestic gardens in relation to social and environmental factors

“…In gardens in Hong Kong 81.9% of tree species were exotic, and they comprised 91.1% of the total tree count (Zhang and Jim 2014). The general preference for exotic plant species reflects a number of factors including colonization history in some countries, associated inherited values, familiarity, as well as socioeconomic considerations (Zagorski et al 2004, Smith et al 2005, Stewart et al 2009, Rozzi 2013. Exotic species may also be more tolerant of common urban stresses, such as compact and limited soil, are often fast-growing, and have showy flowers (Kareiva et al 2007).…”

Garden-Related Environmental Behavior and Weed Management: An Australian Case Study

“…The TPB/TRA has been applied to various behaviors relevant to plant choice (consumer behavior) and bush-friendly behavior (physical outdoor activity), for example gardening, green consumption, home-based environmental behaviors, physical activity and conservation behavior (Collette et al 1994;Lautenschlager and Smith 2007;Barr 2008). The TPB/TRA variable attitude has been found to be related to the species composition of gardens (native or non-native) (Zagorski et al 2004). As such, we decided to test the TRA with additional predictors against GEBs.…”

“…To explain garden-related behaviors, previous studies examined various socio-demographic and psychological predictors, such as attitude (Zagorski et al 2004) and environmental identity (Kiesling and Manning 2010). Compared to other environmental behaviors, for example recycling, garden-related environmental behaviors (GEBs) that minimize the possibility of weed escaping are not widely studied.…”

Drivers of risk perceptions about the invasive non-native plant Japanese knotweed in domestic gardens

“…Studies that have examined perceptions of INNP in domestic gardens have largely focused on their categorisation as native or non-native, and their perceived level of invasiveness (e.g. Zagorski et al 2004;Qvenild et al 2014), rather than the perception of risks that specific INNP pose.…”