The Benefits of Horticulture to Industry and Society
Find out about what horticulture can do for society, including the visual, financial, and health and wellbeing benefits, as well as how horticulture can help in working towards a more sustainable future
Horticulture can be defined as the science, art, technology and business of cultivating ornamental plants and crops. Now that we have reached a point in time where we are more disconnected from nature than ever before, through urbanisation, industrial agriculture and the increased use of technology, perhaps it is now that society has the most to benefit from horticulture. This article will argue that horticulture has the potential to counter balance the negative impacts of modern living.
Ecosystem services and horticulture in urban areas
Benefits that are provided to humans by natural ecosystems are called ecosystem services; They include factors such as regulating climate, soil formation, oxygen production and recreational benefits. As the growing global population is placing an increasing strain on the world’s natural systems, horticultural landscapes can can help to provide some of these benefits that have been lost through degradation and loss of wild environments. In particular carbon sequestration, which can help to regulate climate, can be optimised with planting that requires minimum soil disturbance. This way the soil is more able to become a sink for carbon storage as the decomposition of organic matter is slowed.
Within urban environments planting and green infrastructure can moderate temperatures in both winter and summer through shading, evapotranspiration and the reduction of air movement. Furthermore, there is strong evidence to suggest that through interception, infiltration and encouraging better water absorption into the soil, green infrastructure attenuates storm and flood waters, and its associated pollution. This, along with sustainable urban drainage systems can help with ground water recharge. There is also some partial evidence to suggest that certain plants can screen out aerial particulate matter and improve air quality.
Horticulture - health and wellbeing
Natural ecosystems, as well as horticultural landscapes, can help to sustain and improve human health and wellbeing. Biophilia hypothesis indicates that exposure to nature is an intrinsic requirement for effective human behaviour and development. This suggests that green landscapes can help to provide an antidote to the increasingly urbanised and technological, contemporary way of living. A recent study about people who had spent time in forest environments in Japan, and illustrated in Figure 1, showed this restoration from stress translates, in part, as a reduction in adrenaline. Stress can cause mental fatigue and physiological damage to the body, therefore reducing it can play a vital role in increasing health and wellbeing.
Figure 1 Effect of a forest bathing trip on adrenaline concentrations in urine. A Effect of forest bathing trip in male subjects (n=12), B effect of a city trip on male subjects (n=11), C effect of a forest bathing trip in female subjects (n=13) (Li, 2016).
The reduced risk of diseases associated with time spent in green space has been attributed to the increased likelihood of participating in sustained exercise, and bringing people together to create social cohesion and strong social bonds. Other benefits of green infrastructure include: providing a physical barrier to wind and noise and mitigating urban temperatures through shading and evapotranspiration.
The list of recorded psychophysiological benefits that green space provides also includes: improved cognitive function, self-discipline and alleviation of attention deficit disorder symptoms in children. Indeed, nature-based learning can increase child development through, amongst other things, exploration and discovery, especially boosting self-esteem and sense of self.
Production horticulture provides more direct and measurable benefits for health and wellbeing, including: extracts and oils for aromatherapy and homeopathy, food, and other produce with numerous nutritional and medicinal benefits. Plants now make up more than 25% of drugs in clinical use in the world, and new discoveries are continuing: recently a treatment for ovarian cancer was discovered in the bark of pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia).
The financial benefits of horticulture
Green infrastructure provides healthy environments, which in-turn can contribute to improved socio-economic benefits. There is a good body of evidence to suggest that the quality of green space can impact on land and property prices, furthermore, there is some case-study specific evidence that it can have a positive impact on economic factors, including new business start-ups and private investment. High visitor numbers at botanic gardens (1,802,958 visits to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 2017) and amenity spaces can bring in financial revenue (£1,653,000 profit for Eden Project Limited in 2016/2017), signalling demand in markets for horticultural experiences. The markets available within the production sector are dynamic and diverse, including foods, ornamental plants, essential oils and pharmaceuticals, presenting a myriad of profit-making opportunities.
Green infrastructure in urban environments can reduce cooling energy requirements. Studies in North America have indicated that, even if a conservative reduction of 20% in energy use is applied, this would result in a US$10 billion saving per annum.
Horticulture and cultural identity
Cultures across the world, throughout man’s evolution, have co-existed with plants, providing food, raw materials, shelter, shade and religious symbolism and have become integral to local identity and character. The importance of this relationship is highlighted in Italy where Olive trees (Olea europaea), central to the identity and heritage of the region, are currently under threat from Xylella fastidiosa. Plants are used on national flags (for example, the Canadian flag with a maple leaf), or as national flowers (see figure 2), and for special occasions such as weddings and funerals.
Culture, myths and people, as much as plants and hard landscaping, create the genius loci or ‘spirit of place’ associated with historic and heritage gardens, and this plays a central role in their preservation and maintenance. This is illustrated by Blenheim Palace that showcases the work of “Capability” Brown, illustrated in Figure 3. Wild landscapes are decreasing with growing human population, therefore human-managed land will play an increasingly important role in biodiversity preservation on a global scale. A study by Baillie and Gregory in 1998 indicated that human-made environments hold greater than 20% of British populations of blackbirds, song thrushes and starlings. Gardens provide a vast array of important habitats for wildlife including: ponds that support amphibians, garden plants that provide nectar for butterflies and bees, and woodpiles as hibernation sites (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, n.d.).
Figure 2 Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), the national flower of India.
Habitat, heritage and biodiversity
Figure 3 Blenheim Palace Gardens.
Plant conservation takes place within gardens, for example, Brugmansia sanguinea found in gardens, is now lost to the wild. Seed banks such as the Kew Gardens’ Millennium Seed Bank, which can potentially facilitate future ecological restoration projects, are therefore providing a genetic insurance policy for future generations. Organisations such as Botanic Gardens Conservation International and Plant Heritage play crucial roles in conservation on a national and international level. Also, the financial drive to produce new horticultural crops and ornamental plants is ultimately increasing biological diversity in cultivated plant communities.
The visual benefits of horticultural landscapes
Plants, individually or collectively, are considered to be attractive, possessing some combination of symmetry, shape, texture, colour, form, fragrance and taste, furthermore, green is psychologically the most restful colour. Wider notions of what is thought to be aesthetically pleasing in horticulture, such as style, are subjective and open to individual interpretation based on cultural and individual inclinations. The late Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe argues that landscape aesthetics must appeal to the evolutionary and collective subconscious, for instance, the appeal of parkland and open spaces derives from our time as hunter gatherers, and the attraction to the formality in straight lines, such as a neatly clipped hedge, stems from the birth of agriculture. Contemporary horticulture incorporates naturalism, which is considered to have originated in China, and although naturalism is normally less tidy, it is thought that knowledge of the ecological function of a “messy” garden can increase its aesthetic value.
‘Wabi Sabi’, a Japanese word describing that which is imperfect, transient, impermanent and a symbiosis of the work done by nature and humans, perhaps offers a deeper insight in to the aesthetic that humans find attractive in gardens. It is described by the narrative: a Japanese master had his son clean, tidy and scrub the tea ceremony yard for three days until it was perfectly clean. The master then shook an autumnal maple tree branch, so the leaves fell randomly to the floor, letting nature give the final touch of artistry.
Conclusion
From symmetry to fragrance, to open spaces, ecological function and impermanence, there are multiple layers to that which humans find pleasing in gardens. This attractiveness, illustrated by the close links with cultural identity and arguably founded in evolutionary periods, forms a strong basis for the future of horticulture.
The co-evolution of plants and humans have resulted in a close need or affiliation, that humans have, to experience nature, in order to fulfil the potential of their health and well-being. The decrease in stress levels and reduced risks of disease associated with time in green spaces are complemented by the nutritional and medicinal benefits that production horticulture can offer. As a juxtaposition, horticulture also benefits the urban environment by mitigating urban temperatures, attenuating flood waters and associated pollution, and the wider environment through carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, supporting wildlife, biodiversity preservation and enabling habitat restoration. Finally, and importantly, green spaces and horticulture can enable better child learning and development.
Online References
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/08/italy-olive-trees-dying-xylella/
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/latest-horticulture-statistics
http://www.fao.org/agriculture/crops/thematic-sitemap/theme/biodiversity0
https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/51247690/58396933
https://plantnetwork.org/meetings/training-days-visits/assessing-developing-spirit-place-document-garden/
https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/pdf/climate-and-sustainability/urban-greening/gardening-matters-urban-greening.pdf
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/gardening-for-wildlife/creating-a-wildlife-friendly-garden/