The influence of emotional and conditional motivations on gardeners’ participation in community (allotment) gardens

Abstract

Despite the benefits of participating in community gardens, motivations that influence gardeners’ participation in gardening activities is largely unexplored. The goal of the study is to quantitatively examine, beyond the commonly known functional motivations, the individual impact of emotional and conditional motivations on gardening participation. To reach our goal, a web-based survey and on-site surveys were administered to 180 gardeners in three community gardens in Austin, Texas. Results showed that, while most functional motivations were significant, the emotional motivation of attachment towards gardening was also statistically significant, demonstrating the individual role of emotional motivations on garden participation. Additionally, a significant conditional motivation was found, including time required to garden. We discuss the implication of our findings for ensuring continual community garden participation.

Introduction

Community gardens¹ provide gardeners with numerous benefits, including food production, enhancement of gardeners’ health, and the provision of a space to be outdoor (Bendt et al., 2013; Breuste and Artmann, 2015; Schram-Bijkerk et al., 2018). Community gardens also contribute to the development of community—by generating a sense of community, improving community integration, and promoting sustainable community development (Exner and Schützenberger, 2018; Matarrita-Cascante and Brennan, 2012; Poulsen et al., 2017; Teig et al., 2009). Benefits such as these have encouraged many cities to become more supportive of community gardens (Sayce et al., 2012; Scott et al., 2018; Spilková and Vágner, 2016).

Despite the benefits of participating in community gardens, studies have yet to fully understand what motivates gardeners to take part in them (Eizenberg, 2012; Poulsen et al., 2014). Researchers and practitioners have sought to identify these motivations, historically focusing almost exclusively on functional reasons for participation (da Silva et al., 2016; McVey et al., 2018; Schram-Bijkerk et al., 2018), such as for food production and health enhancement.

Recently, studies (Cervinka et al., 2016; Martens et al., 2018) have indicated the need to have a broader understanding of the reasons for participation in community gardens. Most of these studies have recognized the existence of emotions resulting from gardening activities, such as feelings of enjoyment or a psychological healing from stress (Dunlap et al., 2013; Nordh et al., 2016). However, such studies have tended to view such emotional feelings as benefits of participating in gardening, failing to investigate if such emotions function as motivators to garden participation.

Similar to the case of studies examining the role of emotional motivations, only a small number of studies have examined the impact of conditional factors on participation. Conditional factors reflect the motivations that encourage or discourage gardeners from engaging in gardening. Most of these studies found that conditional factors that create barriers to participation decrease gardeners’ interest in gardening (Diaz et al., 2018; Drake and Lawson, 2015); however, none of these studies have examined if gardeners indeed stop participating in gardening due to these factors.

Further, no study, to our knowledge, has quantitatively incorporated functional, emotional, and conditional factors in one analysis. In this study, we offer such analysis by examining the individual contributions of each of these factors on gardeners’ participation. In particular, the present study focuses on emotional and conditional motivations that contribute to gardeners’ participation, analyzing them separately from functional motivations, something that most past studies have failed to do given their qualitative nature. To do this, this study uses quantitative research methods, which are pertinent for examining the individual impact of different constructs (functional, emotional, conditional). In this study, two overarching research questions are examined:

• What is the role of emotional motivations in predicting participation in community gardens?

• What is the role of conditional motivations in predicting participation in community gardens?

We expect that the results of this study help community garden designers and managers to better understand the importance of emotional and conditional motivations for participation in gardening. We believe that an understanding of such reasons can lead to the development of strategies that can result in gardeners’ being involved in a more stable fashion and thus increase the longevity of community gardens. Furthermore, we believe the continual engagement in community gardens may contribute not only to the longevity of community gardens, but also to an accessibility of green spaces in urban settings.