Landscape and Urban Planning 105 (2012) 34–42

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Landscape and Urban Planning

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Plant traits link people’s plant preferences to the composition of their gardens
Dave Kendal a,b,∗ , Kathryn J.H. Williams a , Nicholas S.G. Williams a,b
a
Melbourne School of Land & Environment, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
b
Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Gardens are ubiquitous in western cities, comprising up to a third of the total urban area and often con-
Received 25 March 2011 taining a majority of the vegetation present. Gardens are the cumulative result of many individual plant
Received in revised form choices, yet we know relatively little about the role of preference in these choices. We investigated peo-
21 November 2011
ples’ preference for different garden plants and reasons for plant choices using a postal questionnaire
Accepted 30 November 2011
(n = 224) containing 30 colour photos of garden plants and questions about gardening behaviour. Pref-
Available online 30 December 2011
erences were compared with the plants growing in the gardens of 48 randomly selected respondents.
Objectively measured plant traits were used to relate preferences to the plants growing in people’s gar-
Keywords:
Landscape preference
dens. Significant relationships were found between survey responses and both the traits and taxonomy
Native plants of plants growing in respondent gardens. The results also show that people’s preferences are very diverse,
Horticulture and that these preferences were related both to aesthetic traits such as flower size, leaf width and foliage
Biodiversity colour, and non-visual traits such as nativeness and drought tolerance. Together these findings provide
Plant traits evidence that garden floras have responded to their social environment, and suggests that the very high
levels of diversity observed in gardens can in part be attributed to the heterogeneity observed in this
social environment.
Crown Copyright © 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction across disciplines identifying a range of factors influencing the

As the world is becoming more urbanised (United Nations,
2010), residential gardens are becoming an increasingly important
contributor to people’s health and wellbeing (Dunnett & Qasim,
2000) and the ecological functioning of cities by maintaining bio-
diversity (Daniels & Kirkpatrick, 2006b; Smith, Warren, Thompson,
& Gaston, 2006) and through the provision of ecosystem services
(Tratalos, Fuller, Warren, Davies, & Gaston, 2007). Gardens are the
cumulative result of many individual decisions about plant choice
over time that combine to determine the social and biophysical
benefits provided. These benefits can vary greatly between gar-
dens and depend on the characteristics (traits) of the individual
plants in them. For example, gardens with many native plants
may provide habitat that suits native birds more than exotic birds
(e.g. Daniels & Kirkpatrick, 2006b) or increase ‘belonging’ for some
people (Head & Muir, 2006) while those with large canopies may
provide more cooling (McPherson et al., 1997) and increase health
benefits (Mitchell & Popham, 2008). There is a body of research
∗ Corresponding author at: Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology, Royal
Botanic Gardens Melbourne, c/o School of Botany, University of Melbourne, Victoria
3010 Australia. Tel.: +61 3 8344 0267; fax: +61 3 347 5460.
E-mail addresses: dkendal@unimelb.edu.au (D. Kendal), kjhw@unimelb.edu.au
(K.J.H. Williams), nsw@unimelb.edu.au (N.S.G. Williams).
occurrence of plants in residential gardens, including attributes of
people such as household income (Martin, Warren, & Kinzig, 2004)
and cultural background (Fraser & Kenney, 2000), attributes of
plants such as flowering (Marco, Barthelemy, Dutoit, & Bertaudière-
Montes, 2010) and fruiting (Acar, Acar, & Eroğlu, 2007) and physical
attributes such as rainfall (Daniels & Kirkpatrick, 2006a). Preference
(Behe & Nelson, 1995; Berghage & Wolnick, 2000; Townsley-
Brascamp & Marr, 1994) and the related concept of aesthetics (Head
& Muir, 2006; Marco et al., 2010) influence people’s plant choices.
However, there has been little research into the ways that peo-
ple’s preferences for plants actually shape the composition of the
plants occurring in their gardens. This study strengthens our under-
standing of this relationship by examining people’s preferences for
plants and plants in gardens using measures that are more objective
and more comparable than approaches typically used in landscape
preference studies.
The few studies that do explore whether preferences influ-
ence the plants grown in gardens have been limited in several
ways. Some are dependent on coarse, subjective measures of
self-reported garden composition or practice that are difficult to
generalise to other contexts. Kurz and Baudains (in press) found
that people who self-reported choosing native plants had much
higher preference for high-habitat gardens, and Larsen and Harlan
(2006) found that people have self-reported garden styles that
mostly matched their expressed preferences. There have been

0169-2046/$ – see front matter. Crown Copyright © 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2011.11.023
 D. Kendal et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 105 (2012) 34–42
several studies at the garden landscape level that link preference to
the garden style presented in photographic stimulus, but provide
little insight into how people choose particular plants. For example,
van den Berg and van Winsum-Westra (2010) show that people’s
preferences vary by the formality of the garden design, and Yabiku,
Casagrande, and Farley-Metzger (2008) found that people’s pref-
erences for mesic and xeric garden styles differed in the desert
city of Phoenix, Arizona. Other studies have related psychologi-
cal traits other than preference to garden characteristics. Zagorski,
Kirkpatrick, and Stratford (2004) found that garden species compo-
sition was related to attitude towards the effort of gardening and
to the environment, while van den Berg and van Winsum-Westra
(2010) found that the personality trait Personal Need for Structure
was related to self-reported garden style.
Our study builds on this body of work by relating people’s
preferences to actual observations of plants in their gardens, and
by characterising plants using objective measures of plant traits.
The use of plant traits provides significant benefits for the under-
standing the relationship between plant preferences and plants
occurring in gardens. Our focus on plant traits draws on approaches
in ecology, where plant traits are commonly used to analyse the
functional response of plants to their environment, and to allow
global comparisons of vegetation communities that are taxonom-
ically distinct (Cornelissen et al., 2003). The study of plant traits
in ecology has focussed explicitly on how the functional traits of
plants (such as leaf mass per area and canopy height) vary in rela-
tion to physical environmental drivers such as climate and nutrient
levels (e.g. Wright, Westoby, & Reich, 2002). Garden plants exist
in an environment that has both physical (e.g. temperature and
water availability) and social drivers (e.g. people’s preferences), and
consequently may show trait responses to both. Loosely defined
plant traits have been used in many landscape preference stud-
ies, typically by expert categorisation of stimulus photographs (e.g.
small, medium or large foliage) (Williams, 2002) or in respondent
self-assessment of garden style categories (e.g. wild, manicured
or romantic) (van den Berg & van Winsum-Westra, 2010). How-
ever, the use of categories with loose definitions makes comparison
between studies and generalisation to other contexts difficult. This
study uses objective measures of plant traits to explore the rela-
tionship between preferences and the plants in people’s gardens, an
approach which will allow our results to be objectively compared
with results from other places. Plant traits that have been related to
people’s preference in garden and non-garden contexts include leaf
and flower colour and size (Kaufman & Lohr, 2004, 2008; Kendal,
Williams, & Armstrong, 2008; Todorova, Asakawa, & Aikoh, 2004;
Townsley-Brascamp & Marr, 1994), leaf width (Williams, 2002), the
provision of shade or fruit (Fraser & Kenney, 2000), tree canopy
shape (Lohr & Pearson-Mims, 2006; Sommer & Summit, 1995;
Williams, 2002) and nativeness (Williams, 2002). This study will
explore the role of preference in people’s garden plant choices by
focussing on plant traits including flower size, leaf colour, native-
ness and leaf width. We hypothesise that garden plants will have
traits that show responses to both social and physical drivers, and
that people’s preference for aesthetic plant traits such as foliage
colour and flower size will be reflected in the traits of the plants in
their gardens.
2. Methods
2.1. Study area
Ballarat is a regional city in south-eastern Australia (latitude
37.56◦ S, longitude 143.86◦ E), and is one of Australia’s largest
inland cities with a population of approximately 82,000. Ballarat
was founded during the gold rush of the 1850s and is a relatively
35
old city by Australian standards. The city has grown slowly but con-
sistently, with older houses tending to be towards the urban centre
and newer housing towards the fringe. The socioeconomic diversity
in Ballarat, with census districts ranging from the 1st to the 89th
percentile of the Australia wide Index of Relative Socio-economic
Advantage and Disadvantage, allows detailed exploration of socioe-
conomic factors. However, we do not attempt to explore the relative
importance of cultural background as there is relatively little cul-
tural diversity in Ballarat as measured by all four core variables
in the Standards for Statistics on Cultural and Language Diversity
(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1999). For example, the propor-
tion of the population speaking a language other than English
(LOTE) was 8% in Ballarat compared to a Australian average of 22%,
and the proportion of Indigenous Australians was 1% compared
to an Australian average of 2.3% (Australian Bureau of Statistics,
2006).
Like much of Australia, the vast majority of the housing in Bal-
larat is detached with both front and rear gardens, and the majority
of houses are owner occupied (Australian Bureau of Statistics,
2006). Front gardens typically consist of garden beds of shrubs and
herbaceous plants around the perimiter enclosing an area of turf
and possibly trees and bisected by a path and/or vehicle drive-
way, although not all elements are present in all gardens. Many
of the plants grown in these gardens are exotic, as is the case in
many other western cities (e.g. Daniels & Kirkpatrick, 2006a; Loram,
Thompson, Warren, & Gaston, 2008; Marco et al., 2008; Martin et al.,
2004). Remnant native vegetation around Ballarat largely consists
of grassy and shrubby woodlands, with a relatively sparse over-
storey of Eucalyptus sp. and Acacia sp. and an understorey of grasses
and shrubs such as Joycea pallida (R.Br.) H.P.Linder, Dianella revoluta
R.Br, Acacia stricta (Andrews) Willd., Leptospermum continentale Joy
Thomps., Daviesia leptophylla A.Cunn. ex Don and Tetratheca cili-
ata Lindl. Native vegetation differs in appearance from the plants
being cultivated in gardens by generally having smaller flowers
and narrower foliage that tends to be dull green or grey-green in
colour.
2.2. Preference survey and sampling
The questionnaire was designed to explore people’s preferences
for garden plants and their reasons for choosing the plants in their
front garden. The questions used were generated from preliminary
semi-structured interviews where a purposive sample of 14 people
was interviewed about the reasons they chose the plants in their
front garden. Respondents were asked to circle words (or write
other words) that described the desired characteristics and func-
tional roles of plants they had chosen (see Figs. 1 and 2 for the
terms used). Some basic demographic questions identified in past
research as influencing people’s landscape preferences and garden-
ing behaviour were also included (e.g. Bhatti, 2006; Martin et al.,
2004; Williams, 2002). The preference section asked participants to
rate how much they liked each of 30 garden plants using a 5 point
Likert scale, presented as colour photographs in a separate booklet
(Table 1). All photographs were taken by the primary author using
a digital SLR camera with a near standard focal length lens and
in overcast conditions to ensure relatively uniform lighting con-
ditions. The photographs were of individual plants in public and
private gardens in Ballarat and Melbourne, Australia, and the back-
ground of each image was blurred using Gimp v2.6 to minimise any
distractions from the plant. The plants used were chosen to repre-
sent a variety of trait values, and were stratified by the presence
of flowers, nativeness, foliage texture and colour, plant type (shrub
or tussock forming perennial) and evidence of clipping (pruning
to a regular shape such as a cube or sphere). Two presentation
orders were determined randomly, and each address was randomly
assigned to one of the presentation orders. The final photographs
36 D. Kendal et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 105 (2012) 34–42
Fig. 1. Responses to the question “Which things about the plants you have chosen in
your front garden influenced your decision?” Results are shown as the proportion
of respondents in each preference group with 95% confidence intervals. For each
response, values with the same letter were not significantly different (Tukey HSD
P < 0.05).
used in the questionnaire were also selected based on findings from
the preliminary interviews, where a multiple sorting technique was
used to identify people’s plant preference categories.
For each of 30 garden plants, a number of traits were deter-
mined. Visual traits were measured directly from the photographs
used in the preference study. As there was only one individual plant
per photograph, all trait measurements were taken from a single
individual per taxa. Following Cornelissen et al. (2003), an aver-
age of 5–10 measurements was used for each trait calculation. Leaf
width was measured as the maximum diameter, in image pixels, of
a circle that fits completely within the leaf. Flower size was mea-
sured as the average diameter of inflorescences in image pixels.
Flowering was measured as the proportion of canopy covered in
flowers. Additional trait measurements were taken from published
literature (e.g. University of Melbourne, 2002). Binary coded vari-
ables were used for grey foliage, green foliage, native (originating
from south-eastern Australia), clipped (evidence of pruning into a
regular shape) and tufted (tussock forming perennials). Drought
tolerance was taken from the Burnley Plant Directory (University
of Melbourne, 2002) and coded as an ordinal variable from 1 (low)
to 4 (high).
Fig. 2. Responses to the question “Which functions of the plants you have chosen in
your front garden influenced your decision?” Results are shown as the proportion
of respondents in each preference group with 95% confidence intervals. For each
response, values with the same letter were not significantly different (Tukey HSD
P < 0.05).
Questionnaires were successfully posted to 695 addresses in
April 2010. This included 127 addresses that were part of a floristic
survey of the plants cultivated in people’s front gardens in which
addresses were randomly selected within eight census districts
stratified by socioeconomic status and geographic location. The
remaining 568 addresses were randomly selected from the local
phone directory. Reminder letters were sent 2 weeks after the sur-
vey was initially posted, and included a URL where the survey could
be completed online. Additional responses for the online question-
naire were sought through local community newsletters. The adult
most responsible for decisions about the garden was asked to com-
plete the questionnaire. A total of 238 responses were received,
199 from the random survey (a response rate of 29%) and 39 from
responses to newsletters.
2.3. Garden survey and sampling
Respondents were asked whether they consented to have
their front garden surveyed to allow comparison between stated
preferences and the traits of the plants in their gardens. Front
 D. Kendal et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 105 (2012) 34–42
Table 1
Images used in preference survey that load most heavily on the four preference dimensions identified. PCA component loadings for the three most
popular plants for each preference dimension are given in brackets.
gardens were used as there is often a great deal of similarity
between the plants in people’s front gardens and back gardens
(Daniels & Kirkpatrick, 2006a), and this approach was less intru-
sive than a survey of back gardens. Approximately one third (n = 48)
of the gardens of respondents who had consented to a garden
survey were randomly selected, a sample size allowing basic sta-
tistical comparisons between respondent groups based on their
preferences.
For each selected garden, all cultivated plants (excluding turf)
were identified to the lowest taxonomic level possible, usually
species, and the number of plants (abundance) of each taxa
recorded. The number of taxa and total number of plants was
calculated for each garden. Plants with obvious morphological dif-
ferences, such as variegated leaves or purple foliage, were identified
as separate taxa. Traits were assigned using the same method as the
preference study, with the exception of leaf width, flower size and
37
flowering which were coded as ordinal variables with values from
1 to 5 from published information (e.g. University of Melbourne,
2002). Frequency was calculated as the proportion of gardens sur-
veyed that a taxa was observed in. Trait signatures were calculated
for each garden. For binary coded traits (native, grey foliage, green
foliage, tufted, clipped), trait signatures were calculated as the
proportion of taxa in the garden with that trait. For continuous
variables (leaf width, flower size, flowering and drought tolerance),
trait signatures were calculated as the mean unweighted trait value
for all taxa in the garden. The proportion of front yard covered
by turf, garden beds and hard surfaces and the age of the house
associated with the garden were estimated from published infor-
mation on historical housing styles (Heritage Council of Victoria
et al., 2007). Digital aerial photos (10 cm resolution) taken on 17
December 2007 were obtained from the City of Ballarat and used
to measure the width and depth of the front garden.
38 D. Kendal et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 105 (2012) 34–42

2.4. Statistical analysis Table 2

The plant traits loading on each preference dimension, measured by the Pearson’s
correlation coefficient between traits and PCA component loadings.
All statistical analysis performed using R v2.11.1
(R Development Core Team, 2010). The distribution of the Plant traits Preference dimensions
data were tested to ensure they met the assumption of normality Fine foliage Flowering Strappy Clipped
for parametric statistical tests. The final analysis only included
Native 0.52 −0.59 0.16 −0.07
data from the 224 survey forms in which the preference section Tussock forming perennials −0.20 −0.35 0.89 −0.20
was completed. Less than 1% of preference ratings were missing Evidence of clipping −0.34 −0.08 −0.31 0.74
and these were replaced by the respondent’s mean (Tabachnick & Leaf width −0.42 0.49 −0.10 −0.10
Fidell, 2001). A plant photograph similarity matrix was generated Grey foliage 0.39 −0.21 −0.04 −0.25
Green foliage −0.40 0.24 0.15 −0.08
as the Pearson correlation of the preference responses for each Flowering −0.22 0.54 −0.30 −0.37
plant photograph. A Principal Components Analysis (PCA) with Flower size −0.46 0.60 −0.11 −0.25
Varimax rotation (using the principal function in the psych package Frequency in gardens −0.42 0.62 −0.34 −0.09
in R) was used to group plant photographs that were treated simi- Drought tolerance 0.36 −0.48 0.19 −0.12
larily by respondents. A scree plot was used to identify the number
of components to extract. The PCA loadings for each component
less likely to be green and more likely to be grey, with smaller
were correlated with plant trait measurements to inform how the
flowers, were infrequently cultivated and more drought tolerant.
component was constructed. A respondent preference similarity
The second dimension (flowering, explaining 13% of the variation)
matrix was generated as the Pearson correlation coefficient of each
was related to plants that were less likely to be native, had broader
respondent’s preference responses. A cluster analysis using Wards’
foliage, larger flowers with a greater canopy coverage of flowers,
linkage (using the hclust function in R) was used to group respon-
were more frequently planted and less drought tolerant. The third
dents with similar preference responses. Respondent preferences
component (strappy, explaining 8% of the variation) were more
for each trait were calculated as the Pearson correlation coefficient
likely to be tussock forming perennials and were less frequently
of plant trait measurements with respondent’s preferences for
planted. The fourth component (clipped, explaining 5% of the vari-
each plant. The Pearson correlation coefficient was then calculated
ation) were more likely to show evidence of clipping and less likely
between mean preferences for each respondent cluster and plant
to have large flowers.
trait measurements to explore how trait preferences were related
There were also clearly identifiable differences between
to cluster membership.
respondents based on their preferences. The cluster analysis of
The relationship between respondent preferences and the com-
respondents’ preferences identified three main clusters of respon-
position of their gardens was explored in three ways. First, the
dents. Different visual and non-visual traits were preferred by
relationship for specific taxa was explored by comparing respon-
each respondent cluster (Table 3). Respondents in the first cluster
dent preferences for taxa that were both common in gardens
(labelled colourful, n = 97) had higher preferences for frequently
(occurring in at least three gardens) with the presence or absence
occuring plants with large flowers and a high proportion of the
of the taxa from their garden using ANOVA (the aov function in R).
canopy covered in flowers, and a lower preference for plants that
Second, respondent trait preferences were correlated with respon-
were native or drought tolerant. The second cluster (modern, n = 82)
dent garden trait values. Separate correlations were performed for
had higher preferences for tussock-forming perennials and lower
all respondents and for respondents who had resided at the same
preferences for clipped plants. Respondents in the third cluster
address for more than 5 years to determine whether length of resi-
(lush, n = 45) had higher preferences for frequently occuring plants
dence affected the relationship between preferences and the plants’
with green, coarse foliage and large flowers, and lower prefer-
growing in people’s gardens. Finally, to explore whether these indi-
ences for native plants, drought tolerant plants and plants with
vidual relationships between preference and the plants in people’s
grey foliage.
gardens affected patterns at a larger scale, the pairwise similar-
There were significant (Tukey’s HSD P < 0.05) demographic dif-
ity of taxonomic composition of respondents’ gardens and their
ferences between the respondent clusters. The respondents in the
preferences was compared across all respondents and gardens. A
colourful cluster were older (mean age = 59 years compared to 50
taxonomic similarity matrix for gardens (based on the inverse of
years for other clusters), had resided at their current address for
Bray Curtis distance, generated using the vegdist function in the
longer (mean years of residence = 16 compared to 11 for other clus-
vegan package in R) and a preference similarity matrix (the corre-
ters) and were more likely to be retired (46% compared to 21%
lation of respondent preferences) were compared with the Mantel
of respondents in other clusters). The respondents in the modern
test (using the mantel function in the vegan package in R).
cluster had higher proportions of people with a graduate educa-
tion (68% compared with 37% of respondents in other clusters)

3. Results
Table 3
The plant traits preferred by each respodent cluster, measured by the Pearson’s
3.1. Overall patterns in preferences correlation coefficient between traits of and mean preferences for each plant.

Plant traits Respondent cluster

There were clear patterns in the preferences of respondents
based on both visual (e.g. flowering, leaf size, habit, and evidence of Lush Modern Colourful
clipping) and non-visual (e.g. nativeness, frequency of occurence) Native −0.52 0.25 −0.47
traits of the plants in the preference study. The Principal Com- Tussock forming perennials 0.23 0.47 −0.31
ponents Analysis of preference responses identified four plant Evidence of clipping −0.02 −0.73 −0.18
preference dimensions (see Table 1) that explained 53% of the total Leaf width 0.32 −0.20 0.27
Grey foliage −0.37 0.22 −0.07
variation. The correlation of component loadings with plant traits Green foliage 0.53 0.15 0.29
measured from the plant photographs (see Table 2) was used to Flowering 0.31 0.15 0.73
develop a descriptive name for each dimension. The first plant pref- Flower size 0.44 0.00 0.60
erence dimension (fine-foliage, explaining 27% of the variation) was Frequency in gardens 0.56 −0.10 0.64
Drought tolerance −0.43 0.14 −0.36
related to plants that were native, with smaller leaves that were
 D. Kendal et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 105 (2012) 34–42
Table 4
The relationship between people’s preferences and the traits of the plants in their
garden, measured by the Pearson’s correlation coefficients between respondent trait
preferences and the traits observed in their gardens.
Plant traits All respondents Respondents more than 5
years at residence
Native 0.47 0.45
Flowering 0.26 0.32
Frequency in gardens 0.25 0.24
Grey foliage 0.16 0.42
Green foliage 0.15 0.34
Flower size 0.07 0.23
Leaf width 0.07 0.20
Tufted 0.06 −0.12
and had resided a their current address for the shortest time
(mean = 10 years).
3.2. Stated reasons for choosing plants
Respondents stated (Figs. 1 and 2) that aesthetic characteris-
tics such as flower and foliage traits and factors related to the
plants’ suitability for a location such as drought tolerance and
low maintenance were the most important reasons for choosing
plants. Other commonly identified reasons included traits such as
fragrance and form, abstract characteristics such as beauty, site-
specific functional roles such as screening or to fill a space, and
personal reasons such as childhood memories. Very few alternative
answers were provided by respondents, and only one ‘cut flowers’
was provided more than once (by two respondents). There were
significant (Tukey’s HSD P < 0.05) differences in some respondent
preferences, with respondents in the Modern cluster the most likely
to choose plants because they were native, drought tolerant or bird-
attracting and the least likely to choose plants for their flower traits,
and respondents in the colourful cluster the most likely to choose
plants for their fragrance.
3.3. Comparison between respondent preferences and their
gardens
There were few significant differences in physical character-
istics of the front gardens of different respondent clusters. The
gardens of respondents in the lush cluster had significantly (Tukey’s
HSD P < 0.05) more individual plants of each taxa in (mean = 7.6
plants per taxa compared with 3.7 for gardens in other respondent
clusters). There were also trends suggesting that taxon richness was
lower in gardens of respondents in the lush cluster (mean number
of taxa per garden = 11.7, compared with 19.4 for gardens in other
respondent clusters), that respondent gardens were largest in the
colourful cluster (mean area = 152 m2 compared with 101 m2 for
gardens in other respondent clusters) and that the proportion of
garden beds was higher in the gardens of respondents in the mod-
ern cluster (mean = 45% compared with 29% for gardens in other
respondent clusters). There were no noticeable differences in the
age of the houses associated with the gardens in different respon-
dent clusters.
There were positive relationships between respondents’ plant
preferences and the plants growing in their front gardens. Respon-
dents had higher preferences for a particular taxa if it was growing
in their garden; respondents with a plant in their garden had a sig-
nificantly (ANOVA P = 0.001) higher preference (mean = 3.8) than
those who did not (mean = 3.3). There were moderate to weak cor-
relations between preference for traits and the traits of the plants
growing in people’s front gardens (see Table 4). For all respon-
dents, the strongest correlation was between proportion of native
taxa in people’s gardens and their preference for native plants, and
there were weaker correlations with leaf and flower traits. For
39
respondents who had been at the same residence longer, there
were much stronger relationships with all flower and foliage traits,
although the correlation with tussock forming plants was weakly
negative.
These first two measures of similarity explore the relationship
between individual respondent preferences and the plants growing
in their front gardens. At a broader scale using a pairwise com-
parison of respondent preferences and the similarity of the taxa
growing in their gardens, people with similar preferences were also
more likely to have similar taxa growing in their gardens. There was
a weak positive relationship (Mantel r = 0.15, P < 0.01) between the
pairwise similarity of respondents’ preferences and the taxonomic
composition of their gardens.
4. Discussion
The garden plant preferences of the participants in this study
were related to aesthetic traits (e.g. flower size, leaf width and
foliage colour), context specific biophysical traits (e.g. drought tol-
erance) and extrinsic characteristics (e.g. nativeness). Different
people preferred different kinds of garden plants. In particular,
there was a great deal of difference in people’s preferences for
native plants, with some people strongly disliking native plants.
People’s preferences were also related to the plants growing in
their gardens. While the statistical relationships between prefer-
ences and the plants in people’s gardens were generally weak, they
were much stronger for residents who had been living at the same
address for more than 5 years.
4.1. Relationship between preferences and plants in gardens
Ecological studies have shown that plant traits respond to their
physical environment (Cornelissen et al., 2003). This study found
that the traits of plants in gardens are related to people’s prefer-
ences, and thus provides evidence that the trait profiles of garden
floras are also responding to their social environment. In the same
way that heterogeneity in the physical environment leads to greater
diversity in native plant communities, our findings suggest that
heterogeneity in the social environment, as we have found in
people’s preferences, should also lead to greater diversity in cul-
tivated plant communities. This may go some way to explaining
the extremely high levels of diversity found in gardens (Thompson
et al., 2003).
Objectively measured traits were found to be a useful way of
comparing plant preferences to the plants growing in gardens. The
use of traits allowed simple statistical techniques such as correla-
tion to be used to compare the strength of the relationship between
preference and plants for particular groups, such as those who had
resided at the same address for longer. The greater strength of the
relationship for residents who had been at their current address
for more than 5 years is not surprising and can be explained both
by people choosing and cultivating the plants they prefer over
time (and removing plants they dislike), and familiarity resulting
in increasing preferences for plants already in their gardens. Also,
not all plants are chosen by residents themselves. Nearly half the
population of Australia has moved house within the last 5 years
(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2010), often to a house with an
existing garden planted by others. Survey respondents had received
28% of plants from their family, 25% from friends and 2% from
landscapers. People may also be choosing plants that they do not
necessarily prefer, but that do provide desired functions such as
the provision of screening, shade or edible fruits, or context spe-
cific requirements such as filling a space or the ability to survive
difficult microclimatic conditions (Figs. 1 and 2).
40 D. Kendal et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 105 (2012) 34–42
The relationship between preference and plants in gardens is
consistent with the findings of studies at the garden level that both
people’s garden style preferences and self-reported practices are
similarly related to a personality trait (van den Berg & van Winsum-
Westra, 2010) or environmental attitudes (Kurz & Baudains, in
press) and that a majority of people preferred a landscape style
that matched their own self-reported garden style (Larsen & Harlan,
2006). Our finding that preference for native plants is related to
their presence in gardens is also consistent with other studies
which have shown that conservation attitudes are related to the
presence of native plants in people’s gardens (Kurz & Baudains, in
press; Head & Muir, 2006; Zagorski et al., 2004).
4.2. A trait-based approach to exploring landscape preference
The most useful traits were those that could be easily measured
using a simple metric such as leaf or flower size. The correlation
between preference ratings and size measurements from stimulus
photographs allows simple calculation of the strength of the effect
for different groups (e.g. see the comparison of trait preference
by respondent cluster in Table 3), and should allow straightfor-
ward comparison across studies even when the taxonomic identity
of the stimulus varies. The importance of flower size, the propor-
tion of canopy covered by flowers, leaf width and leaf colour to
the prediction of preference for most (but not all) people is gen-
erally consistent with other research. Specifically, research has
shown that green is a preferred foliage colour (Kaufman & Lohr,
2004, 2008), that only some people prefer grey foliage (Kendal
et al., 2008), that people prefer broader leaves (Williams, 2002), and
that foliage colour can be an important factor in consumers’ plant
choices (Berghage & Wolnick, 2000; Townsley-Brascamp & Marr,
1994). The importance of flower and leaf characteristics is not sur-
prising given the emphasis of these characteristics in horticultural
plant breeding (Hobhouse, 2002), and it is likely that preferences
may be an important reason plants are selected for these traits.
These findings are partially consistent with habitat theories
of landscape preference, which have argued that people prefer
plants with characteristics indicating high resource availability
such as large flowers and green foliage (Heerwagen & Orians,
1995), dislike characteristics that indicate poor quality habitat such
as narrow foliage (Williams & Cary, 2002) and selectively breed
plants to increase the psychological benefits provided by them
(Haviland-Jones & Wilson, 2005). Others have argued that land-
scape preferences may be culturally based rather than biologically
based (van den Berg, Vlek, & Coeterier, 1998), and these findings
are also partially consistent with the idea that Australian garden-
ing preferences and practices are derived from western-European
traditions. While these theories provide some explanation for pref-
erence for large flowers, broad leaves and green foliage, in this
study these preferences were not uniform and some people clearly
did not prefer these characteristics. Instead, one group of respon-
dents preferred garden plants with narrow leaves and grey foliage
and strongly preferred some non-visual traits such as nativeness
and drought tolerance. This group was also the most likely to state
they chose plants for these non-visual traits (nativeness, drought
tolerance and attractiveness to birds) (Figs. 1 and 2). Landscape
preference theory suggests that while landscape preferences may
be evolutionary adaptations or culturally based, preferences can
also be based on individual knowledge (Bourassa, 1991). The results
of our study are consistent with the idea that some people have
been able to overcome their innate or cultural preferences, and
existing knowledge of the origin and tolerances of specific plant
species or the relationship between visual proxies (such as leaf
width and foliage colour) for the these non-visual traits are being
used in the determination of preference. This is perhaps through
understanding other benefits such as ecosystem functioning or
drought tolerance, through familiarity, or through understanding
the aesthetics of foliage texture and colour contrast in broader gar-
den landscapes. This is also consistent with the findings of Marco
et al. (2010) that both physical and social factors were related to
people’s plant choices. Participants also preferred frequently occur-
ring plants, yet it is not clear if this is a response to the familiarity
of these plants, or simply that these plants are cultivated more
frequently because they have other preferred traits.
The response to native plants was particularly strong, with some
people strongly preferring native plants and others strongly dis-
liking them. This distinction has also been found in other studies
of Australian gardeners (Head & Muir, 2006; Kurz & Baudains, in
press), and may be related to the relatively large taxonomic and
aesthetic differences between Australian native vegetation and the
garden vegetation of Australia’s European colonial past. Other stud-
ies have shown that native plants can be preferred in a garden
context with appropriate edge treatment (Nassauer, 1995), in an
appropriate design (Helfand, Park, Nassauer, & Kosek, 2006) or
when neighbours have native gardens (Nassauer, Wang, & Dayrell,
2009). However, this study shows that some people do prefer native
garden plants without a spatial context. The relatively high educa-
tion levels of the respondent cluster preferring native plants is also
consistent with the findings of studies on preference for native and
naturalistic landscapes (van den Berg & van Winsum-Westra, 2010;
Williams, 2002; Williams & Cary, 2002; Zheng, Zhang, & Chen,
2011). It has been hypothesised that people with higher education
levels may have a greater knowledge of environmental issues, and
this may translate into environmentally sensitive behaviours such
as planting trees (Luck, Smallbone, & O’Brien, 2009). Higher educa-
tion levels may lead to both higher preferences for native garden
plants and the planting of native species in gardens through and
understanding of the broader environmental benefits they provide.
Overall socioeconomic and demographic factors were relatively
poor predictors of preference and it is likely that other individual
level factors not measured in this study contribute more substan-
tially to variations in preference. Other studies at the garden level
have related preference to personality traits such as Personal Need
for Structure (van den Berg & van Winsum-Westra, 2010) and the
type of course students’ are enrolled in (Zheng et al., 2011), or
related the species composition (Zagorski et al., 2004) and style
(Grampp, 1990) of gardens to the gardener’s attitudes towards gar-
dening effort. Cultural background has been related to variations
in garden preference and practice (Fraser & Kenney, 2000; Kurz &
Baudains, in press), although this was not likely to be a significant
factor in this study due to the relative cultural homogeneity of Bal-
larat. Further research could reveal whether these factors are also
related to garden plant preferences.
4.3. Implications for garden practice and policy
This study shows that people have diverse preferences that are
related to the plants in their gardens. Programs that wish to regulate
gardening behaviour, such as introducing collective management
of gardens to achieve biodiversity outcomes (Goddard, Dougill, &
Benton, 2010) must consider the diverse preferences of residential
gardeners, particularly in relation to the use of native plants. For
some people, preferences appear to be related to extrinsic envi-
ronmental benefits rather than intrinsic characteristics, and this
perhaps provides a greater opportunity to shape people’s gardening
behaviour than top-down approaches. Activities based on factors
that have been shown to affect preference for native plants such
as familiarity (Herzog, Herbert, Kaplan, & Crooks, 2000), for exam-
ple through the public planting of native plants, and education to
increase awareness of their ecological benefits (Gobster, 1999) may
also lead to the increasing cultivation of native plants in urban
landscapes.
 D. Kendal et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 105 (2012) 34–42
There are also implications for the study of landscape prefer-
ences. The use of objectively measured traits allows comparison
between studies in different places and with taxonomically dis-
tinct floras, and is more suited to generalisation to other contexts.
Little is known about how specific landscape elements influ-
ence human health and wellbeing (Velarde, Fry, & Tveit, 2007),
and the exploration of people’s response to plant traits may
also help to reveal the specific characteristics of plants (such as
canopy size, flower size, leaf width or foliage colour) that con-
tribute to people’s health and wellbeing. The findings of this
study show that people respond very differently to different
plant traits, suggesting that the plant characteristics relevant
to health and wellbeing may in fact be different for different
people.
Other research exploring patterns of diversity and distribution
of cultivated plants has largely focussed on census-district level
social factors (e.g. Kirkpatrick, Daniels, & Zagorski, 2007; Martin
et al., 2004). Future research could focus more on individual fac-
tors less tied to the geography of census districts and shown to
be related to gardening behaviour such as gender (Bhatti & Church,
2000), age (Bhatti, 2006), personality (van den Berg & van Winsum-
Westra, 2010), cultural background (Head, Muir, & Hampel, 2004)
and conservation beliefs (Zagorski et al., 2004).
5. Conclusion
This study shows that the plants growing in people’s gardens are
related to their preferences. We found that people’s preferences for
garden plants are related to both aesthetic traits such as flower size,
leaf width and foliage colour and non-visual traits such as native-
ness and drought tolerance. This provides some evidence that the
trait profile of cultivated garden floras is responding to heterogene-
ity in the social environment as well as the physical environment,
and that the high levels of diversity observed in gardens is at least
partly the result of people’s diverse preferences. Objectively mea-
sured plant traits are a useful way of exploring preference for
particular landscape elements that allow more meaningful com-
parisons between studies, and may help reveal the plant traits
influencing people’s health and wellbeing. Further research on indi-
vidual household level factors may help to explain further variation
in patterns of urban vegetation.
Acknowledgements
This project was supported by an Australian Postgraduate
Award scholarship. Additional support was provided by the Uni-
versity of Melbourne. We thank the residents of Ballarat who
participated in this survey and permitted us to survey their gardens.
We are grateful for the thoughtful comments of three anonymous
reviewers and the editor that have resulted in a greatly improved
manuscript.
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