Play it light: the role of gardens and gardening in the lives of latter-day urbanites

Figures & data

Table 1. Basic characteristics of the sample (in brackets the percentages for the general population of Czechia as of 31 December 2021 are displayed).

gender	%	occupation	%
men	41.1 (49.3)	top professionals	6.3 (2.7)
women	58.9 (50.7)	intermediary professionals	25.8 (17.8)
age		administrative support	20.2 (11.9)
up to 25	11.6 (25.4)	skilled manual workers	10.6 (14.8)
25-34	15.6 (12.0)	unskilled manual workers	4.6 (2.8)
35-44	17.2 (14.7)	maternity leave	3.6 (12.1)
45-54	27.2 (15.2)	students	9.3 (8.2)
55-64	10.6 (12.1)	pensioners	18.5 (27.2)
65 and over	17.9 (20.6)	unemployed	1.0 (2.5)

Source: own survey; Czech Statistical Office (2022).

Figure 1. The most common functions of urban/residential gardens.

Source: Own survey.

Note: The numbers indicate the frequency of mentions.

Table 2. Evaluation of perceived benefits of gardening in a residential garden (mean scores; scale 1–5, higher score indicating a greater importance).

	Total	Prague	Other cities and towns
Relaxation	4.09	4.12	4.05
Spending time outdoors	4.06	4.10	3.98
Controlling the appearance of the garden	3.69	3.72	3.65
Beautification, creating something nice	3.60	3.67	3.49
Producing food or herbs	3.58	3.59	3.56
Observing nature and natural processes at work	3.36	3.39	3.32
Working with my hands	3.34	3.45	3.17
Producing ornamental flowers	3.32	3.43	3.17
Meeting friends and neighbours*	2.62	2.49	2.82
Novelty, trying new plants	2.58	2.47	2.74
Demonstrating my gardening expertise*	2.18	2.08	2.34
Demonstrating my effort	2.01	1.95	2.10

Source: Own survey.

* statistically significant difference between Prague and other cities (Mann-Whitney U test, p < 0.5).

Table 3. Loadings on the three resulting components – prolific, idle, and diligent gardening.

	Component
	“prolific”	“idle”	“diligent”
Spending time outdoors		0.825
Observing nature and natural processes at work		0.556
Beautification, creating something nice	0.618
Relaxation		0.824
Controlling the appearance of the garden	0.537
Working with my hands	0.628
Novelty, trying new plants	0.696
Producing food or herbs	0.701
Producing ornamental flowers	0.719
Meeting friends and neighbours			0.683
Demonstrating my effort			0.891
Demonstrating my gardening expertise			0.864

Source: Own survey.

Figure 2. Favourite elements of the residential garden.

Source: Own survey.

Czech Statistical Office. (2022). Public database. https://vdb.czso.cz/vdbvo2/faces/en/index.jsf?page=statistiky#katalog=33475

 Google Scholar