Heritage Gardens Research Articles

Interpreting the space characteristics of everyday heritage gardens of Suzhou, China, through a space syntax approach

ABSTRACT China’s everyday heritage gardens, epitomizing social and spatial logic through classical layouts, offer a window into the nexus between Chinese culture and spatial design. Using space syntax and statistical methods, we examined 27 such gardens in Suzhou, categorizing them into four groups by spatial attributes. We first quantified building spatial traits, then delved into their syntactical relationships, guiding the final clustering. Cluster A, with 17 gardens, marries architectural diversity with spatial harmony, ensuring navigability. Cluster B’s seven gardens prioritize open landscapes, minimizing buildings for clarity. Cluster C, comprising two expansive gardens, blends architectural variety with spatial coherence, albeit with some navigational complexity. Unique, Cluster D, solely Yi Garden, presents a rich spatial and architectural tapestry, demanding deeper visitor engagement. This work sheds light on the intertwining of garden design and spatial structures, underscoring influences like ownership and cultural milieu, suggesting broader applicability to heritage gardens.

Negotiating authenticity and biodiversity in heritage gardens

With this paper we explore and discuss the priorities of and possible goal conflicts between authenticity and climate change in heritage gardens. How can climate change mitigation, adaptation, resilience, and cultural heritage conservation be combined in heritage gardens? Our study was guided by the following research question: How do gardeners negotiate climate change and authenticity in heritage gardens? From Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in the 1960s through to the 2002 report Gardening in the Global Greenhouse and the recent Gardening in a Changing World in 2022 mankind's impact on the environ­ment and the emerging climate change has been the focus of increasing attention. By invest­i­gat­ing and interviewing multiple gardeners our objective was to pinpoint common challenges, as well as what can be learned from one another within the field of gardening and heritage conservation. The case study method was adopted for this study, involving three head gardeners in the United Kingdom. Interviews were conducted with Joseph Atkin at Aberglasney Gardens, Claire Greenslade at Hestercombe Gardens, and Steve Lannin at Iford Manor about their expertise and knowledge. The gardeners expressed concern re­garding climate change and the challenges it poses. The interviewees shared their experience with drought, reduced use of pesticides and herbicides, and the peat legislation in relation to their role as head gardeners. We argue that authenticity and the traditional gardening practised before the advent of power tools, plastic, peat issues, and uninformed transportation can be part of the solution to loss of bio­diversity and climate change. This paper identifies some of the obstacles encountered in relation to negotiating questions of authenticity and climate change in heritage gardens.

What attracts tourists to press the shutter in cultural heritage tourism? An analysis of visitor-employed photography and visual attributes: a case study on Japan’s Kairakuen Garden

ABSTRACT Tourism behaviour in cultural heritage gardens presents opportunities and challenges for sustainable management. Understanding visitor perceptions and assessments of visual resources in cultural heritage gardens are of great interest to heritage site managers. Using a case study of the Kairakuen Garden in Japan, we collected images (N = 430) and geographic data of tourist photos in the heritage garden through visitor-employed photography technology to analyse what hotspots attract tourists to take photos. We also evaluated the visual attributes of photo hotspots using a questionnaire. The results reveal that the most common elements in tourist images were plant landscapes and human-made structures and that the 12 photo hotspots of the Kairakuen Garden were placed along the officially recommended tour routes, indicating that tourists identify the officially approved scenery. Furthermore, there are four main hotspot areas; they received significant different visual attributes assessments in ‘scenic beauty’, ‘complexity’, ‘mystery’, and ‘diversity’. Based on these findings, it is possible to understand tourists’ visual perceptions and preferences and to make recommendations for the management of the Kairakuen Garden and other cultural heritage gardens.

3D Laser Scanner as a Tool of Documentation for the Heritage Gardens

3D Laser Scanner as a Tool of Documentation for the Heritage Gardens

Shrinking Greens: Travellers’ Account of the Heritage Gardens of Ahmedabad—1400–2016

The sultans of Gujarat tried to transform the landscape by planting native and exotic trees and introducing gardens on the perceived Central-Asian Khorasan style to underpin their control over the acquired or conquered territory and its nature-landscape. After the founding of Ahmedabad, gardens within the religious and secular architecture came up all over the city. The foliage and gardens were hugely admired by the travellers passing by the city. Perusing their travelogues, we navigate the changing landscape and the green spaces of Ahmedabad over a period of time. While constructing the history of gardens in Ahmedabad, this article reflects on the future sustainability of the city if the culture of nature and environment-sensitive values are not inculcated and promoted.

Facing Multiple Environmental Challenges through Maximizing the Co-Benefits of Nature-Based Solutions at a National Scale in Italy

The European Union is significantly investing in the Green Deal that introduces measures to guide Member States to face sustainability and health challenges, especially employing Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in urban contexts. National governments need to develop appropriate strategies to coordinate local projects, face multiple challenges, and maximize NBS effectiveness. This paper aims to introduce a replicable methodology to integrate NBS into a multi-scale planning process to maximize their cost–benefits. Using Italy as a case study, we mapped three environmental challenges nationwide related to climate change and air pollution, identifying spatial groups of their co-occurrences. These groups serve as functional areas where 24 NBS were ranked for their ecosystem services supply and land cover. The results show eight different spatial groups, with 6% of the national territory showing no challenge, with 42% showing multiple challenges combined simultaneously. Seven NBS were high-performing in all groups: five implementable in permeable land covers (urban forests, infiltration basins, green corridors, large parks, heritage gardens), and two in impervious ones (intensive, semi-intensive green roofs). This work provides a strategic vision at the national scale to quantify and orient budget allocation, while on a municipal scale, the NBS ranking acts as a guideline for specific planning activities based on local issues.

Our garden heritage is in our hands: protecting yesterday, today and tomorrow

Heritage organisations take responsibility for the conservation and protection of places and objects deemed in some way significant. That protection usually involves, by necessity, the management of change. In garden heritage, that pace of change can be particularly rapid and unpredictable, with the greater movement of pests and diseases across the world and the impacts of global climate change both acting as particular accelerants in our time. 
 Our sector needs to achieve increased resilience and responsiveness to secure our heritage gardens and their plants for future generations, keeping them relevant, and without meaningful loss or diminution. We need to show that we understand our plants and places, that we have teased the golden thread of heritage significance from the past so that it is clearly visible and can be shared, valued and cast forward into the future for succeeding generations. We need practitioners with the right skills to care for our heritage, building from garden apprenticeships and horticultural students through to professional gardeners, craftspeople, managers and thought leaders. Above all we need to work together to demonstrate the power and potential of our places and plants for the benefit of society.

Shiraz’s heritage gardens during the political turmoil in Twentieth-century Iran

ABSTRACT This paper aims to study the impacts of complex political changes on the material and socio-cultural dimensions of the heritage gardens, which initially belonged to the nobilities of Shiraz. The paper scrutinises the factors that have altered the gardens’ lives during the Festival of Arts in the 1960s, followed by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Through employing interpretive-historical research methods and examining primary sources including memoirs, memos, documents, and interviews conducted with managers involved in heritage affairs, the paper details how political, social, and economic parameters affected the Shiraz gardens. While the political states interpreted the heritage differently, possible factors responsible for changing the life of gardens are put forward.

Conservation Of Heritage Gardens As an Approach For Valuable Areas Urban Upgrade ( El-Horreya Garden in El- Zamalek Island as a Case Study ) (Dept.A)

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The Sustainable Development of Urban Cultural Heritage Gardens Based on Tourists’ Perception: A Case Study of Tokyo’s Cultural Heritage Gardens

For the cultural heritage gardens in the urban environment, modern high-rise buildings inevitably change their original landscape and form a new landscape experience with visual impact. Whether cultural heritage gardens and modern cities can coexist harmoniously is one of the critical issues to achieve their sustainable development. This research aimed to find an indicator of landscape morphology, which can predict the visitor’s cognition for such cultural landscape forms. This study surveyed tourists’ preferences in six selected cultural heritage gardens in Tokyo. We used hemispheric panoramas to calculate the view factors of certain elements of the landscape at the observation points. The results showed that Sky View Factor was a positive predictor of tourists’ preference, and this predictability did not change significantly with the attributes of tourists. We also found that tourists’ attitudes towards the high-rise buildings outside the gardens have become more tolerant and diverse. These findings could be applied to predict visitors’ perception preference of cultural heritage landscape in the context of urban renewal, contributing to the sustainable development of cultural heritage landscape and urbanization.

Visual Effect of Modern Buildings on a Traditional Japanese Garden

Even though heritage gardens have been preserved successfully in Japan, these gardens, especially the ones in Tokyo, have been surrounded by modern high-rise buildings that have entered the scenery of the gardens dramatically. This situation has become an issue from the perspective of cultural heritage preservation. This paper aimed to define the effect of modern buildings on a Japanese heritage garden called Hama-rikyu Gardens in the context of user perception by a questionnaire on site. Results indicated that the modern buildings should be eliminated from the scenery of the garden in the future since the participants preferred unspoiled views. eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v3i8.1393

Selecting Low-Flammability Plants as Green Firebreaks within Sustainable Urban Garden Design

In response to an increasing risk of property loss from wildfires at the urban–wildland interface[…]

Integrating horticulture into the tourism supply chain

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) estimates that the global value of tourism will be US$ 10.8 trillion by 2018. Tourism has become a crucial contributor to the GDP with the total export earnings of many countries’ being a major source of employment. With definitions acknowledged for nature-based or ecotourism the author establishes horticultural tourism as a niche market in green tourism and describes the benefits and potential of the green assets, such as public parks and recreation facilities, historic and heritage gardens, national and international horticultural events, rural farm visits, community gardens and farmers markets, all of which have as yet untapped tourism potential in many countries. Horticultural tourism initiatives require the effective integration of these horticultural assets, products and services in the tourism supply chain. The objective of the paper is to provide a definition of horticultural tourism and discuss the successful methods being used in countries to integrate horticultural products and services into the tourism supply chain as well as discuss the challenges and research opportunities facing this dynamic sector of the industry and the need for it to move towards a more sustainable operating base. Evidence suggests that in most developed and developing countries it is possible to establish a viable supply chain that stretches from the producer/service manager of the asset to the tourism and hospitality industry. However, the challenges that need to be addressed include a better understanding of the tourism supply chain, an acknowledgement that all stakeholders have to be involved and there is active government assistance to achieve significant horticulture-tourism integration. Horticultural tourism will continue to grow in both developed and developing countries provided it is founded on the principles and practices associated with sustainable development, with minimal impact on the environment, promotes health and active living, and is supportive of local culture and economy.

Garden culture as heritage: A pilot study of garden culture conservation based on Norwegian examples

The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness of garden culture conservation. In current garden conservation frameworks, garden owners’ values of their heritage gardens are rarely considered. What do garden owners value the most? What does it mean to heritage conservation? What are the objectives of garden conservation when taking garden owners’ views into consideration? Using data collected through qualitative interviews in Norway, we discover that garden owners most value the interaction with their garden and the feelings gained from the interaction. Also, we find the term ‘cultural heritage’ is confusing to the interviewees, since over half of them do not perceive their gardens as a cultural heritage. We compare the values of the interviewed Norwegian garden owners with those extracted from historic garden conservation charters and the values of gardens in a broader literature. The comparison shows that the values realised through the interaction between people and gardens are largely missing from current conservation approaches. Next, using theories from David E. Cooper, David Phillips and the Living Heritage Approach, we argue that the values embedded in the interaction between people and gardens are crucial in terms of fulfilling the goal of heritage conservation, and that garden owners’ values should be considered in conservation guidelines. In the end, we present a new approach to conserving garden heritage: garden culture conservation. By replacing the term ‘heritage’ with ‘culture’, we avoid the confusion of the meaning of ‘heritage’ to the public and extend the area of conservation to include both historic and ordinary gardens, as well as both tangible and intangible dimensions. Garden culture conservation aims to reinforce the connection between people and gardens, thus keeping alive garden culture in society.

Public value at risk from Phytophthora ramorum and Phytophthora kernoviae spread in England and Wales

Heritage gardens, heathland and woodland are increasingly under threat from the non-native tree and plant diseases Phytophthora ramorum and Phytophthora kernoviae. However, there exist only limited literature that estimates the public non-market value that may be lost from a continued spread of Phytophthora ramorum and Phytophthora kernoviae into these habitats. This paper therefore uses a contingent valuation survey to assess the non-extractive public use and non-use values at risk from an uncontrolled spread of these diseases in England and Wales. Results estimate that £1.446bn of public value is at risk in England and Wales per year from an uncontrolled spread of Phytophthora ramorum and Phytophthora kernoviae. The greatest public value at risk, of £578 m/year, is from an uncontrolled spread of these diseases to heritage gardens, while the lowest public value at risk, of £386 m/year, is from disease spread to heathland. The findings of this paper should help policymakers make informed decisions as to the public resources to dedicate towards Phytophthora ramorum and Phytophthora kernoviae control in England and Wales. In this regard, the current control programme to contain these diseases appears cost-effective in light of the public value at risk estimates produced by this paper.

Spatio-temporal variation in phenological response of citrus to climate change in Iran: 1960–2010

Recent studies investigating floral and faunal phenological responses to climate change have highlighted the extent to which these relationships are species and location specific. This study investigates temporal responses of citrus peak flowering to climate change in the cities of Kerman, Shiraz and Gorgan, Iran. Phenological data comprise peak flowering dates of five citrus types: orange, tangerine, sweet lemon, sour lemon and sour orange, collected daily from government heritage gardens located within each of the cities over the period 1960–2010. For the same period, daily Tmax, Tmin and rainfall data were acquired from the Iranian Meteorological Organization. Time trend analyses were undertaken for both the phenological and meteorological data, followed by linear regression to determine the nature and extent of relationships between these variables. We find that the mean peak flowering dates, and their long-term trends over the 51-year period, are similar across the five citrus types within each city, but demonstrate significant differences between cities. Flowering date advances of 0.12–0.17d/yr are recorded for Kerman, and more rapid advances of 0.56–0.65d/yr for Shiraz. Notably, progressive delays in flowering dates occur in Gorgan (0.05–0.1d/yr). The peak flowering dates in the former two cities demonstrate strong relationships with mean annual Tmin, ranging from r=0.47–0.61 (p=0.0045; p<0.0001) for Kerman to r=0.53–0.67 (p=0.0386; p<0.0001) for Shiraz, and equate to peak flowering advances of 3.15–3.39d/°C and 4.34–5.47d/°C, respectively. By contrast, the strongest relationships between peak flowering dates and annual climate in Gorgan are with rainfall (r=0.02–0.3, p=0.8874; p=0.0528), indicating a weak phenophase response of 0.01d/mm. For Gorgan, the strongest relationships (r=0.43–075, p=0.0002 to p<0.0001) are between peak flowering date and mean Tmax for May, the month during which peak flowering occurs, with a delay in flowering of 1.26–1.86d/°C cooling. This suggests a relatively more influential climatic role directly preceding peak flowering, which may be associated with anomalous cooling in May. However, Kerman and Shiraz demonstrate more consistent strength in correlation between peak flowering and climate variables across the months of the year, with only slight peaks for the months flanking peak flowering. Our study highlights the importance of considering location-specific phenophase shifts within given regions, as dissimilar trends may occur within a country; this has important implications for future agricultural planning and fruit crop supply to local and international markets.

The Irish Heritage Council

IntroductionThe Heritage Act 1995 established An Chomhairle Oidhreachta, the Irish Heritage Council, as a statutory body with responsibility to propose policies and priorities for the identification, protection, preservation and enhancement of the Irish national heritage. The Heritage Act defines heritage as including both cultural and natural heritage and specifically refers to: monuments, archaeological objects, heritage objects, architectural heritage, flora, fauna, wildlife habitats, landscapes, seascapes, wrecks, geology, heritage gardens and parks and inland waterways.

Tourism, Heritage Buildings, and Tax Relief

A generous tax relief was created by the Irish parliament in 1982 to cover the costs of repair/restoration work on heritage buildings and gardens. A central feature of the tax relief is that the building must be kept open, within prescribed limits, for tourist visits during the following 5 years. Both tourism and heritage protection gain from the measure. Ireland appears to be one of only a few states (France is another) that offer such a tax relief. This analytical and discursive article examines the nature, scope, and development of this tax relief, with particular reference to the issue of public access.

Cultivating People-Plant Relationships in Community and Cultural Heritage Gardens San Jose, California (1977-1992)

This paper documents important people-plant relationships to be found in San Jose's ethnically diverse Community and Cultural Heritage Gardens. Unpublished university research, local magazine articles and newspaper stories are cited which show how partnerships with grassroots community groups have contributed to the garden programs sustainability. Preliminary findings, with investigative surveys, suggest that more use could be made of the non-English speaking gardeners who are skilled horticulturalists. Several case studies, show how cooperative development of the San Jose gardens produces the results identified by the California Council for Community Gardening in 1977 which stated: Community gardening improves the quality of life for all people by: beautifying neighborhoods; stimulating social inter-action; producing nutritious food; encouraging self-reliance, conserving resources; and creating opportunities for recreation and education. Examples drawn from the San Jose urban gardening experience document local community pride and horticultural accomplishment. A comparison is made of San Jose's largest and oldest community garden(Mi Tierra) with 90% Hispanic plotholders and a smaller garden(Wallenberg), entirely Caucasian. The Cultural Heritage Garden program is recognized nationally as a new urban gardening program. San Jose's success with its Japanese and Chinese Cultural gardens provided the basis for program expansion to include partnerships wth the Vietnamese, Mexican and Filipino communities. A serious effort to have an Indo-American cultural garden is now underway. Results of networking between these projects has unified various factions within each group, as well as created a new sense of belonging to the larger community. Interviews with selected horticulturists and community leaders detail this type of development. This paper raises familiar questions and long-standing problems, connected with the operation and maintenance of user-developed gardens. Recommendations are made for the effective management of public gardens with volunteers. San Jose Community Gardens are contrasted with other Parks Division maintained gardens in San Jose to ascertain differences in the felt sense of "ownership" and responsibility to care for public landscapes. This research paper closes with suggested methods for starting similar programs elsewhere. An annotated bibliography is provided.