Ecological Garden Research Articles

Programming and construction of green space network ecosystem in Jinan

Programming and construction of green space ecological network are the main landscape patterns of ecological gardens for basic city ecological facilities and for rural-urban integration.The green space programming and construction is an important approach to sustainable development and ecological construction in cities.The research based on the relative theories of ecology and city landscape lays out the green space ecological network system in Jinan,in which the multi-green centers and ring-net city green space are developed as the core,green garden bands as radiation axes,city-level parks as nodes and round-the-city greenbelts as junctions.Thus,a green space ecological network can be created with one centre,three rings,six belts,seven passes and districts,and multi-wedges and nodes.

How green is your thumb? Environmental gardening identity and ecological gardening practices

For gardeners, the garden is a significant aspect of identity. The number of people who garden and consider themselves environmentally friendly is growing. This exploratory study investigated whether “environmental gardening identity” is a measurable construct that motivates environmentally-friendly home gardening cultivation practices above that predicted by the previously validated environmental identity scale (EID, Clayton, 2003). A mail questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 800 urban-suburban self-identified gardeners (61% return rate.) The survey contained four sections: (1) the environmental identity scale (EID); (2) a new scale instrument designed to measure environmental gardening identity (EGID), (3) multiple choice questions addressing specific gardening practices, and (4) demographic questions. Results show that environmental identity, as measured by the EID, significantly predicts ecological gardening behavior. Additionally, it was found that the environmental gardening identity scale (EGID) comprises five subscales, all of which are highly correlated with the environmental identity scale (EID), and three of which explain the variability in gardening practices above that explained by the EID. However, it does not appear that these three subscales of the EGID specifically measure identity. Additional analyses show that respondents' reasons to have a garden are linked to the strength of both EID and EGID, especially for those respondents who garden as a way to connect with nature.

Ecological image databases: From the webcam to the researcher

Imagery of ecological systems can be used to observe organisms, to observe rare events and to document long-term changes in ecological systems. Here we describe two systems used for archiving and sharing imagery with ecological researchers in the United States and Taiwan, discuss the database design and interface issues and how they were resolved and present some examples of their use. The Shan-Ping Bee Camera System monitors a bee colony at the Shan-Ping Forest Ecological Garden in south-central Taiwan. The Virginia Ecocam System uses wirelessly-connected web cameras to capture imagery from remote barrier islands of the Virginia Coast Reserve. Both systems provide multiple tools to retrieve and display images for research use using a relational database to store and query image metadata, but store the images in either a file system or using a Storage Resource Broker (SRB).

Visitor perceptions of ecological design at The Crosby Arboretum, Picayune, Mississippi

This article highlights a case study and visitors' perceptions of an ecologically designed arboretum in southern US. Our results from a survey of visitors find that natural appearing designed landscapes 1) should blend into their surrounding landscape context; 2) should appear cared for; 3) do not need to be highly structured in appearance; 4) that contain art and human expression are of moderate interest; and 5) should convey meaning or importance of facility. While noting importance of landscape ecology to design profession, landscape architects have criticized certain aspects of ecological design in public gardens. Regarded as first arboretum to comprehensively embody a bioregional concept, Crosby Arboretum in Picayune, Mississippi, has been described as the first fully realized ecological garden in country. Project designers merged a symbiotic interplay between vegetation patterns and physical processes of arboretum site with patterns and processes found in local plant communities. The survey determined degree to which visitors understood and derived meaning from original design intent by asking about their learning and perceptions from experience of individual landscape exhibits and an overall site comprehension of regional understanding. Results were entered into a purpose-built database, which provided statistical analyses on collected information.

Reflective Practice as a Means for Preparing to Teach Outdoors in an Ecological Garden

Although teachers are engaged in many field-trips, they seldom have the pedagogical knowledge and experience to enact them. This article presents an effort to support reflective practice of teachers in the outdoors. The teaching experience of five pre- and in-service teachers included preparation for teaching in the outdoors, designing learning materials, teaching elementary and junior-high school students in an ecogarden, and reflecting upon these teaching experiences. The data collected by teachers and researchers highlighted challenges such as lack of confidence, class management and inadequate student motivation. The group and the instructors’ support and collaboration and careful preparation yielded a positive outdoor teaching experience. We suggest that supported field experience followed by individual and group reflection are promising in encouraging teachers to carry out outdoor learning activities.

Las cubiertas ecológicas de tercera generación: un nuevo material constructivo

In 1994, the first ecological roof in Spain was built as a result of a research process. The structure of the construction, the substrate, and the chosen plants have been modified since then, in order to make the environmental properties optimum and to adapt it to extreme climatic conditions such as Spanish dry summers and frosted winters. All these changes have been tested and the energetic attitude has been studied. The best result is represented by a third generation roof model, called as an ecological garden roof. The present article describes the results obtained from the previous research as well as the final process results.

Plant Collecting for the Ecological Garden and the Scottish Heath Garden at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

The Ecological and Heath Gardens at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh were created in 1991 and 1997 respectively. The Ecological Garden started as a naturalistic area of native woodland plants where cryptogams were encouraged to grow. Building on its success other habitat types were created nearby. The Heath Garden replaced an older heather garden and sought to recreate the ‘feel’ of a Scottish upland heathland. In recent years additional wild origin material of conservation concern has been added to each Garden and this paper describes the process along with some of the plants selected.

THE USE OF ATMOSPHERIC NITROGEN BIOLOGICALLY FIXED AS AN ALTERNATIVE FOR NIROGEN CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS IN VEGETABLES ECOLOGICAL CULTIVATION

In Arad agro-ecological area were carried out some researches for peas and garden bean crops. The results of these studies recommend the use of Biotrofin biofertilizer as an alternative for chemical fertilizers nitrogen based, unaccepted by ecological vegetable gardening. INTRODUCTION Biofertilizers’ industry has developed very much in the last period. Being based on the capacity of soil bacteria to symbiotically, associative or freely fix atmospheric nitrogen and give it to plants in an accessible form together with other bioactive substances such as phyto-hormones (auxines, gibberellins, citokinones), this industry doesn’t pollute the environment and presents favourable effects for remaking soil’s biodiversity (Panea, T. si colab., 1998). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The experiment was carried out between 2001-2005 for peas (Bordi variety) and garden bean (Volja variety) crops. Excepting proposed variants, there were followed specific techological steps. The study reffered to three graduated factors, in part for every year: biofertilizer’s way of administration (seeds treatment and soil pulverization), bacterization (bacterizated and unbacterizated) and chemical fertilizers nitrogen based (30-120 kg a.s/ha). The bacterial product used was Biotrofin (10 l/ha).

Typical Patterns of Ecological Engineering in Southern China

With the emergence and development of ecological engineering in China, and also the research and demonstration of Chinese Ecological Agriculture (CEA), in recent 10 years many types of ecological engineering have been appeared in Southern China, they could be classified into 4 typical patterns. These typical patterns are; 1. Ecological Building (EB), such as ecological public toilet, ecological garden, ecological integrated building, farmers' ecological household, the combine of ecological building and CEA; 2. Ecological Engineering in Paddy Field (EEPF), like rice-fish system, water caltrop-wild ricestem-fish system, mulberry-silkworm-pig-fish system; 3. Ecological Engineering of Agroforestry Systems (EEAF), as tea-food crops intercropping system, rubber-tea-chicken system, bamboo-chicken system, fruit tree-chicken system, metasequoia-fish-duck system; 4. Ecological Engineering Linked with Biogas (EELB), such as animal (pig)-biogas-fish system, animal (pig)-biogas-fruit tree system, animal-biogas-food crops system. Some case studies were presented in the paper. It is showed that these typical patterns have better ecological, social and economic benefits, now they are deeply been extending in southern China.

The Responses of Momordica Charantia at Different Modular Levels to the Changes of Support Diameter

The morphological plasticity of plants occurs due to the changes of modular quantity dynamics, modular patterns and modular morphologies. Climbing plants differ from non_climbing and self_supporting plants in many growth characteristics, which mainly result from biomechanical constraints. The morphology and growth of climbing plants may be affected by external supports to a large extent. External supports are important resources and determine the strategies which climbing plants use to obtain maximum sunlight. The object of this study is to describe the effects of external support diameter on growth, biomass allocation and morphological plasticity of herbaceous climbing plants at different modular levels. Three questions are addressed in this study: 1) Do plants have growth, biomass allocation and morphological plasticity responses at different modular levels on different external support diameters? 2) If so, what is the difference between the various modular levels? 3) What is the meaning of those responses on climbing plants to search and locate the external support? The garden experiment was carried out in the Ecological Garden of Southwest China Normal University with a perennial herbaceous climbing species- Momordica charantia. On 6 May 2000, the seedlings of M. charantia with the same size were planted in 40 figuline containers filled with cultivated soil, one seedling per pot. External supports were made of iron line covered with PVC at the beginning of the experiment. All plants were divided into four groups, and each group had supports with 2 mm, 4 mm, 8 mm, 12 mm and 16 mm in diameter, respectively. Each plant was supplied with the same quantity of water and nutrient during the experiment. From 7 June to 6 July, the individual's growth conditions and branch numbers were recorded at 10 day intervals. All individuals were harvested at 25 August and divided into main stem and shoot, the following parameters were measured separately: a) internode length, b) internode diameter, c) petiole length, d) single leaf area, e) the number of primary branch and f) second branch and the distance from primary branch to base of main stem. The individuals were separated into root, main stem, shoot, lamina, petiole, flower and fruit, and cleaned by tap water and oven_dried for 72 h at 84 ℃, then weighed separately. The main results of this study were as follows: 1) The climbing efficiency of plants was significantly affected by support diameters with climbing efficiency reducing with increase in support diameter. The climbing growth rate of plants on the 2 mm, 4 mm, 8 mm, 12 mm and 16 mm supports were 3.00, 3.00, 2.13, 0.88 and 0.75, respectively; 2) The changes of support diameters did not affect the timing of shoot occurring but significantly affected the shoot numbers and shoot sites along stem. The first primary shoot of all individuals sprouted between 13 June and 17 June, the means of primary shoot numbers on the 2 mm, 4 mm, 8 mm, 12 mm and 16 mm supports were 12.3,10.0,11.3,14.3 and 14.6, respectively; 3) The individuals had higher sensitivity to the changes of support diameter than those of shoots. Plants showed powerful capacity of searching external supports when they encountered the large diameter supports. In this case, the stem extension slowed, specific stem length enlarged, shoot number and branching ratio increased, shoot length and petiole length prolonged, while R/S ratio decreased. The biomass accumulation of individuals was affected slightly by different support diameters, the biomass of individuals grown on the 2 mm, 4 mm, 8 mm, 12 mm and 16 mm supports were 43.56 g, 47.29 g, 34.32 g, 50.46 g and 31.44 g, respectively; 4) The changes of external support diameters had no significant effect on morphological characteristics and biomass characteristics of shoots; 5) The changes of morphology, biomass allocation and shoot behavior of individuals were the responses of the climbing plants to the availability of external supports, which would help the individuals to enhance the capacity of foraging support