To mow or not to mow?
How gardening behaviours may relate to nature connection and environmental values.
Hello, welcome to the 8th post and as we approach the festive season a gift to myself, which I hope you will enjoy too. In this post I review, hopefully without too much self-indulgence nor indeed self-criticism, my own research.
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?”
The question of how Mary’s or anyone else’s garden grows is a topic that has caused many a horticultural debate recently. There has been a huge surge of interest around sustainable, environmentally-friendly gardening. Jostling alongside the blooms and crowds at the last few RHS Chelsea shows were the words “rewilding”, “weeds” and “biodiversity”. Some gardeners have embraced this, while others feel at times it may have gone too far.
I am a keen gardener, although a bit of a “make-it up as I go along” sort, despite having a long legacy of gardening to uphold. My parents always had and still do have despite their advancing age, a gorgeous garden, a mixture of formal planting and vegetable beds. They know the names of plants (even the latin ones) along with the best conditions for planting and ways to tend them. My wife is similar whereas I tend to spot a plant I like the look of, dig it in and hope for the best. And this is why my wife is the garden planner and seed potter while I do the digging. We have a small garden, split into two areas of a simple round lawn surrounded by a border mainly of evergreen shrubs, under the shadow of a large cherry tree, and a vegetable growing area of raised beds, which produces crops with varying degrees of success. We are keen on being sustainable in what we do and grow in the garden. So there are three water butts, a composter, and supporting wildlife has informed planting choices and objects in the garden like the birdbath, bee hotel and bird boxes.
This provided some of the inspiration for my dissertation research project, which never quite made it through to a journal publication. So as a festive gift, thought I would share what it was about, what it found and might suggest, starting with a brief look at the background and related theories. First, the rather catchy title of the study…
To Mow or Not to Mow: The Relationship of Nature Connectedness, Environmental Worldview and Pro-nature Conservation upon Sustainable Gardening Behaviours Within Private Garden Settings
Background
The impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss are now well documented. Land management and stewardship is key to supporting nature and reversing damage through initiatives such as rewilding, sustainable agriculture and management of invasive species. Are these concepts applicable in the garden too? The Office for National Statistics (2020) reported that in the UK 88% of households have access to a garden. In 2019 they also estimated that gardens covered an area of around 520 thousand acres and accounted for about a third of urban space. Wildlife and gardening charities promote wildlife gardening with the aims of connecting gardens to the local environment and reducing horticultural behaviours which make a negative contribution.
That all sounds great, but there are challenges. In a study of gardeners by Norton et al., (2021) around a third of gardeners struggled to define biodiversity, and while wildlife can appear highly in lists of benefits of gardening, the motivations for having a garden as a social space or play area often comes higher (The Horticultural Trades Association, 2021). Additionally gardens are often seem as an extension of the house which may prevent them being seen as part of the local eco-system.
It may, therefore, be helpful to frame gardening as a pro-environmental behaviour of land stewardship, encouraging the perspective that gardens are able to be both managed and sustainable. Pro-environmental behaviours can be split into those focussed on reducing consumption and those supporting wildlife, also termed pro-nature conservation behaviours.
The science bit
Conservation psychology can assist with supporting such behaviours and highlighting how to maximise benefits. Many psychological aspects inform gardening, including habits, social and cultural norms, and garden usage motivations. One theoretical perspective on pro-environmental behaviour is the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory (Stern et al., 1999), which suggests that behaviours are supported by a person’s environmental worldview, informed by their underlying ecological values towards nature. Values can be split into two groups - those which are more pro-self or self-enhancement driven and those which are pro-social or self-transcendence driven. The first group includes egoistic value, which supports behaviours that provide personal benefit and resist cost, and hedonic value, with an emphasis on personal positive affect and reduced effort. The second group includes altruistic value, which considers the wider cost to others and society of behaviours, and biospheric which is similar to altruistic but also includes the environment and all living beings. As an example, a gardener with more egoistic values may assess the cost impact of using peat-free compost, while a gardener with more biospheric values may focus on the consequences of the peat removal.
Within the VBN theory worldview and ecological values help to provide a cognitive framework of awareness of environmental issues, where responsibility lies, and what individual actions can be taken. This may support a sense of “moral obligation” towards the environment which manifests in three ways - social activism (e.g. supporting charities, campaigning), supporting policies (e.g. acceptance of policies which may bring personal cost) and personal behaviours (e.g. recycling). Studies using the VBN theory have been carried out across different cultural contexts and include measuring behaviours of nature conservation and land management. Worldview can also be assessed through levels of environmental concern, where greater concern which is reflective of biospheric values is linked to more pro-environmental behaviour.
Nature connectedness is also linked to biospheric values and higher levels of nature connection appear to correlate with more interest in biodiversity and greater levels of pro-environmental behaviour. Nature connection is an affective engagement with the natural environment, which provides experiential benefits and reduces seeing nature as a resource to be consumed, which may also provide positive benefits to wellbeing. (Ives et al., 2018, Richardson et al., 2020). It has been suggested that gardening and nature connectedness have a close relationship (Dobson et al., 2020).
What the study aimed to do.
The study aimed to measure gardeners behaviours through their environmental worldview and nature connectedness, a combination of which has been suggested to predict pro-environmental behaviour. Environmental worldview was assessed using the New Ecological Paradigm (Dunlap et al., 2000) while nature connection was by the Nature Connection Index (Richardson et al., 2019). The social activism and policy support aspects of the VBN theory were assessed by part of the Pro-Nature Conservation Scale (Barbett et al., 2020). This measure also provided the measure of wildlife gardening behaviours focused on supporting biodiversity, which were supplemented with ten questions on sustainable gardening behaviours developed for the study and informed by sources such as the Royal Horticultural Society.
The study explored if greater levels of nature connection, a pro-environmental worldview and pro-nature activism correlated with both more sustainable gardening behaviour and wildlife gardening behaviour. It also considered if gardening experience correlated with more nature connectedness. The study also assessed the new questions on sustainable gardening against acceptable reliability and validity levels.
Who helped with the study?
Participants were recruited via adverts on social media and across the University of Derby, and had to be 18 or older, with access to a private or shared garden. After data quality checks, a final sample of 179 participants was used in the analysis, of whom the majority were female (76%), with an age range of 18-83 years (mean age of 44.5). The majority were UK based, with a small number from Norway, Australia, USA, Greece, Hungry and Spain. Gardening experience (measured using a simple, rough measure from 1 (none) - 10 (expert) had a mean value of 4.7.
What did it find?
The ten sustainable gardening questions had good reliability, although two questions reduced internal consistency and were removed. The remaining eight questions (internal consistency of Cronbach ⍺ =0.84) were used in the analysis.
Data parametric assumptions were not met due to skewed distribution and outliers, however as there was no valid reason to omit data points from the sample no action was taken. Multiple regression analysis and correlational analysis were employed to test the study hypotheses.
The results found that nature connection, environmental worldview and pro-nature conservation activism were significant predictors of both sustainable gardening behaviours (medium effect size, explaining 30% of the model variance) and of wildlife gardening behaviour (medium effect size, explaining 39% of the model variance). In both cases environmental worldview was not a significant predictor itself. Post-hoc analysis using demographic data found that age was a significant predictor of both sustainable and wildlife gardening, while higher education levels was only significant to sustainable gardening.
What does it suggest ?
The hypothesis that greater levels of nature connection, worldview and activism predicted gardening behaviours was partially supported, as the model suggests that nature connection and activism were significant predictors, with activism being the largest. This indicates that gardeners who feel more connected to nature and undertake other forms of pro-environmental behaviours are more likely to use sustainable gardening behaviours that are also supportive of wildlife. Gardening experience appears to correlate with nature connection, such that greater experience positively correlated with higher nature connectedness, but not with environmental worldview. Of the ten questions added for this study, eight were found to provide a reliable measure of sustainable gardening behaviour.
The results provide partial support for the VBN theory as a predictive model of pro-environmental behaviour, by indicating that personal behaviours align with activism and policy support. As activism was the highest contributor to the model, this suggests that individuals adopt pro-environment behaviours across different contexts. However the results do not support the VBN theoretical perspective that environmental worldview informs behaviour. This may be a result of using the NEP measure, which has been found to be inconsistent in predicting PEB.
The results also support nature connectedness as a predictor to pro-environment behaviour and reflects other research that has suggested gardeners with more experience have a deeper sense of connection. Within the NCI measure nearly all participants responded positively to the compassion pathway question of “I always treat nature with respect” and compassion is seen as supportive of pro-nature conservation behaviours. The results also support the reciprocal nature of gardening and nature connection, where these seems a feedback loop between them. However the NCI scores of the sample were skewed towards high scores which may effect these results.
What could have been better ?
The sample had signs of self-selection bias, with high scores on both environmental worldview and nature connection measures, with the skewed distribution reducing generalisation of results. Additionally, the participants were predominately female, a common feature of nature-related studies. While NEP is an established measure of environmental concern, perhaps a more granular measure of ecological values would have been more better.
A future version of this study could consider the motivations for gardening or use of the garden, which may have a bearing on the responses. A mixed methods, supporting the measures with qualitative questions, could also tease out more insight into the relationship gardeners have with nature through their gardens and how that corresponds to their horticultural behaviours. As the majority of participants in this study were from the UK there was not enough data from the other countries to assess any location or cultural differences which might have been interesting to explore.
What implications does it have ?
Promotion of wildlife and sustainable gardening may benefit from being linked to nature connection, given the mixed findings around appealing to a wider environmental worldview. Employing nature connection pathways may be helpful - for example, using the compassion pathway to foster the moral obligation suggested within the VBN theory to support nature-friendly gardening behaviours. It may also be helpful to promote behaviours alongside activism and policy support, given the apparent cross-over of them. For example, promoting both the use of peat-free compost alongside supporting campaigns to stop peat extraction.
Gardens, especially within urban settings, can play a huge role in supporting local biodiversity and through our gardening choices we can make a positive contribution to climate change. Small things, like capturing rainwater, composting, zero use of pesticides and encouraging wildlife into the garden are all things we can do. These can also provide mental wellbeing benefits to us, by supporting our connection to nature along with the simple joy that our gardens and their wildlife visitors can bring.
So there you go, it was a fun research project to do. A huge thank you my project supervisor Dr Caroline Harvey and to anyone reading this who supported the study by taking part. That support was very much appreciated and hopefully this summary explains the rationale for the study and what the results showed.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this or any previous posts, so please feel free to add a comment, send an email to TheCompassionateNatureHub@gmail.com or add a reply if you see it via social media. Please also feel free to share the post on to anyone you think may be interested.
Thanks for reading this post, it will be the last one of 2023. Compassionate Nature will be back in early January with lots more regular weekly posts looking at recent psychological research around the topics of compassion and nature connection. Thanks for your reading support this year, have a lovely, peaceful Christmas and New Year period.
References
Barbett, L., Stupple, E., Sweet, M., Schofield, M., & Richardson, M. (2020). Measuring actions for nature—Development and validation of a Pro-Nature Conservation Behaviour Scale. Sustainability, 12(12), 4885. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12124885
Dobson, M. C., Reynolds, C., Warren, P. H., & Edmondson, J. L. (2020). “My little piece of the planet”: The multiplicity of well-being benefits from allotment gardening. British Food Journal, 123(3), 1012–1023. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-07-2020-0593
Dunlap, R. E., Van Liere, Kent D, V., Mertig, A. G., & Jones, R. E. (2000). Measuring endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm: A revised NEP scale. Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 425–442. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00176
Ives, C. D., Abson, D. J., von Wehrden, H., Dorninger, C., Klaniecki, K., & Fischer, J. (2018). Reconnecting with nature for sustainability. Sustainability Science, 13(5), 1389–1397. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0542-9
Norton, B. A., Shang, B., Ramsey, A. D., & Sheffield, D. (2021). Definitions of biodiversity from urban gardeners. Journal of Urban Ecology, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/jue/juab005
Office for National Statistics. (2019). UK natural capital: Urban accounts. Government of the United Kingdom. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/uknaturalcapital/urbanaccounts
Office for National Statistics. (2020, May 14). One in eight British households has no garden. Government for the United Kingdom. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/oneineightbritishhouseholdshasnogarden/2020-05-14
Richardson, M., Hunt, A., Hinds, J., Bragg, R., Fido, D., Petronzi, D., Barbett, L., Clitherow, T., & White, M. (2019). A measure of nature connectedness for children and adults: Validation, performance, and insights. Sustainability, 11(12), 3250. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11123250
Richardson, M., Passmore, H.-A., Barbett, L., Lumber, R., Thomas, R., & Hunt, A. (2020). The green care code: How nature connectedness and simple activities help explain pro-nature conservation behaviours. People and Nature, 2(3), 821–839. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10117
Stern, P. C., Dietz, T., Abel, T., Guagnano, G. A., & Kalof, L. (1999). A Value-Belief-Norm Theory of support for social movements: The case of environmentalism. Human Ecology Review, 6(2), 81–97. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24707060
The Horticultural Trades Association. (2021). Garden industry statistics. https://hta.org.uk/industry-data/garden-statistics.html
I am definitely a proponent for the no-mow or reduced-mowing movement. In fact, mowing used to be quite the battle between my ex-husband and I lol. I say "hell, no, I won't mow!"
Hi Chris
This was really interesting to read. I love the idea of re-wilding my garden. I started to feel a bit stupid walking up and down all summer cutting the lawns and thinking why am I battling nature, should I just let it grow into a meadow! A tiny meadow, that is :)
I’m interested in what that says about me, psychologically speaking.
Perhaps you’d like to come on our podcast at some point to discuss your ideas.