Well, if you wondered how Janna got on with your responses to the questionnaire last year, here you are.
It’s not easy. In fact, it’s a challenge worthy of thinking gardeners. I know you’ll be up to it.
Janna was – congratulations, Janna, from all of us. The pictures are from the Award Ceremony for the Masters degree which the questionnaire was used for.
And thanks to the 824 people who responded to the questionnaire.
Anne Wareham, editor
Janna Schreier –
It was almost a year to the day since I sent out a plea to thinkingardens readers, asking for thoughts on my Master of Horticulture dissertation topic, and there I was in London – in my silly hat – for my MHort graduation. It was finally all wrapped up.
Janna receiving her Master of Horticulture certificate from Sir Nicholas Bacon
When I asked for your help, I promised to give an update on my findings, so here goes.
What was I trying to achieve?
My research question was:
How can sense of place help optimise the garden visitor experience?
In effect, I was looking to determine if the somewhat intangible ‘sense of place’ was important to good garden design, and if so, how it could change a garden visitor’s experience. Having designed gardens across three continents, I knew that, for me, gardens that somehow reflected their location, or place, had an incredible effect on me: they left me feeling calm, content and exhilarated, all at once. But it wasn’t just about reflecting location, it was bigger than this. I wanted to pinpoint exactly what it was; I wanted to see if others experienced the same thing and I wanted to draw useful, practical conclusions. I figured that if this was better understood and recognised, it could provide an impetus for higher quality gardens and improved well-being. Which seemed all quite worthwhile.
The Lindley Hall looking absolutely spectacular
How did I approach the question?
I first broke it down into three objectives:
1. Define sense of place
2. Identify key factors for garden visitor experience optimisation
3. Evaluate links between sense of place and garden visitor experience
Then I read. And read some more. I exhausted the RHS’s library on the topic and then moved on to the British Library. After putting together my initial hypotheses, I tested them. On 824 of you (thank you so much!). This lead to more robust hypotheses, which I then put to up to be critiqued, by a number of subject experts, from designers Arne Maynard and Lisa Delplace, to university professors and the horticultural journalist, Tim Richardson.
There is quite an array of horticulture awards up for grabs
What did I find?
1. Define sense of place
I could fill an entire book on this alone, but the short answer is that I defined sense of place as:
‘a place that evokes strong engagement’.
A garden with a sense of place draws you in and prompts a strong reaction. It may be a positive or negative reaction, but it’s a garden you’ll likely remember. This definition was derived from a combination of previous academic studies and amateur and professional gardeners’ feedback, to provide most relevance within the context of gardens.
Along the way to this conclusion, I identified three key inputs to sense of place, and one output, as follows:
If one of the three inputs was missing, the output (engagement) would be compromised.
In slightly more detail…
a. Identity
A garden with a strong identity relates to one or more of:
a) people – eg a gardener’s personality or specific passion
b) time – eg historical features or events; seasonality
c) place – eg local traditions/flora/materials/landscape/architecture
to create a:
distinctive (can distinguish it from other gardens), relatable (not random; can see how it fits with people/time/place) identity (overriding concept: the garden ‘knows what it is’).
b) Atmosphere
We’ll explore this in a minute
c) Structure
Not something that drives engagement, but something that negatively impacts it if it’s missing.
There was definitely a plant theme at the RHS Awards Ceremony
2. Identify key factors for garden visitor experience optimisation
There was very little robust literature on this subject (although plenty of opinions!), so this was where you helped me build an evidence-based picture from scratch.
As you can imagine, there was a whole array of reasons given for positive garden visiting experiences, so where to start in categorising them? Well, what I did find was a great model, produced by Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, about museum visiting, which adapted rather nicely to gardens. By relating all 824 questionnaire responses to Maslow’s tremendously insightful Hierarchy of Needs, garden visiting experiences could be categorised into those of social, intellectual, emotional and or spiritual engagement.
Through understanding experience and engagement types, it starts to become clear that different aspects, or ‘atmospheres’, within a garden will be necessary in order to engage different people with differing needs and wants. Yet every single positive experience could be defined in terms of either spiritual, emotional, intellectual and or social engagement, very much reinforcing the multiple sources demonstrating the step from engagement to well-being.
James Alexander-Sinclair presenting the Awards
Some of the experts I spoke to were genuinely quite horrified by the idea of categories, frameworks and tables: surely, garden design was something you felt your way through, not something you produced through data and analysis? And for those who are more ‘right-brain’ dominated, you’re unlikely to feel comfortable with, or any value from, such a framework.
But for other experts, they saw the framework as a powerful tool, enabling greater understanding of why some gardens work for some but not others and providing guidance for achieving a garden’s aims. Clearly, it is a simplification, but being based on 824 experiences, all of which could be placed into one or more engagement categories, it’s a way of finding clarity within complexity.
Just as Maslow describes, over time, individuals tend to move up the categories towards the spiritual engagement types. Which explains why non-gardeners often described social factors and professionals more frequently described emotional and spiritual ones. Equally, just as Maslow states that an individual can operate at more than one level, so can a garden. For example, responses to my questionnaire showed positive experiences at Wisley garden were most commonly linked to levels 5, 6 and 7, whilst those at Great Dixter garden were mostly linked to levels 2, 3 and 4.
And how does this link back to identity? Well, whilst the existence of an appropriate atmosphere to meet the visitor’s desired experience will likely engage them, that engagement can be increased by ensuring the garden has a distinctive, relatable identity. A beautiful garden without a clear identity can evoke a pleasant experience but it is likely to have a short-lived, shallow effect on emotions. Similarly, a garden designed for learning that lacks an identity may be confusing: full of random, disjointed facts that are hard to understand and remember, given little context.
The MHort graduates feeling the need to throw their hats in the air
3. Evaluate links between sense of place and garden visitor experience
Well done, if you are still following. This took me a full year to get my head around!!
So, having seen that:
i) all positive garden visiting experiences can be described by one (or more) engagement type(s), and that
ii) the output of sense of place is engagement
a clear link between sense of place and positive garden visiting experiences can start to be seen.
Using data from a follow up questionnaire, I looked at a garden that had been rated (in questionnaire 1) as having a strong sense of place (Great Dixter), with a garden that had been rated highly in terms of experience, but less strongly associated with sense of place (Wisley). I then racked my brains to remember the statistical correlation mathematics that I’d learnt a very, very long time ago, and studied the findings.
The data you provided me with showed highly statistically significant correlations between engagement (our definition of sense of place) and both atmosphere and identity:
The link between structure and emotional engagement was a little more complex, but showed that where structure was ranked below 6 out of 10, engagement was – without exception – weak. In essence, your feedback provided such a large sample of consistent responses, that you proved, beyond doubt, that identity, atmosphere and structure are all strongly linked to emotional engagement.
A further piece of analysis then explored correlations between the type of engagement (eg social, intellectual etc) and importance of sense of place. Interestingly (and anecdotally), a number of people who stated they hadn’t previously heard of the term sense of place, also stated, at the end, that sense of place was ‘essential’ to a good garden visitor experience!
But statistically, the importance of sense of place to good experience increases the higher up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs you go. A strong sense of place correlates with more positive experiences for all engagement types, but has a stronger correlation to emotional and spiritual engagement than to social and intellectual.
The very distinctive Great Dixter
So how do these findings help?
Well, if you are a strong ‘right-brainer’, as many creatives are, chances are they won’t help you at all. But if you are someone, interested in garden design, who likes learning through evidence and logic, you might find something in this.
My hope is that by demystifying the essence of sense of place, it will be better understood, more widely created and in turn, the increased well-being that I feel in a garden when it is present will be experienced by more people, more often.
I also hope it explains why some gardens are loved by some and looked down upon by others: they meet the needs for some experience types, but not others. All gardens that engage at some level are of great value, we’ll just each be more satisfied visiting ones that best meet our specific needs.
We should return to my original question:
How can sense of place help optimise the garden visitor experience?
This study showed multiple strong correlations relating sense of place to positive effects on garden visitor experience, across diverse visitor and garden types. Indeed, the two are integral to each other: engagement underpins all positive garden experiences and sense of place is a ‘label’ for strong engagement. The strength and breadth of these correlations mean that the frameworks developed provide robust guidance for garden makers of all types and clarify steps to promote increased well-being through gardens.
As globalisation extends its reach, distinctive place identity may go one of two ways; either succumb to dilution as cultures merge and multinationals standardise, or lead to a heightened appreciation for distinctiveness and a greater need for identity as an anchor. Embracing the concept of sense of place offers horticulture a mechanism for improved emotional well-being at a time of accelerating change and instability.
So, finally, is ‘sense of place’ important to good garden design? If you believe good garden design should strongly engage, then yes, the elements of sense of place are essential.
Next steps
Where do we go next with this? Do I reformat my dissertation into a practical, readable, case-study–led book? Or do I focus on demonstrating these findings in the design of my new, four-acre garden? I’d love to know your thoughts. Does any of this resonate with you?
Janna Schreier
Your studies are leading in the right direction!
Let me suggest that for some of us the place or site is everything. Nothing else matters very much.
Our gardens, if that is what they are, carefully avoid the following: flowers,parterres,herbaceous borders,hedges, lawns,houses, mazes, swimming pools,furniture, and walls.
One could say that these gardens aspire to be, simply and directly, Memorable Places.
Yes, I think that sense of place steps outside the garden too, because this is where the garden comes from… so a satisfying garden connects you to the world and the person who makes it in a rather extraordinary way. Then it connects with writing about it because how do you come to this sort of analysis really without looking and writing and photographing day after day… A very interesting read. The only thing is it leaves out the weeding…
Janna, I’m reminded of a Biblical quotation: “But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid.” For me, it can all come from this, and works for me through a kind of intuition (I’m a confirmed right brainer!). But I’ve read your analysis several times, and I think it contains truth, and advances our understanding of why sense of place is important in the garden. Like Andrew M, I hope you will go on to write your book, with exemplary gardens (not case studies) in each category, or rather demonstrate how various categories apply to each garden, demonstrating the full complexity of the matter. And I think there’s a place for personal, subjective experience in that book in additional to intellectual analysis. Thank you for putting your work in a form appropriate to thinkingardens.
Challenging, overly analysed and just hard to accept that “sense of place” and atmosphere can be any way analyzed was how this “right brainer” first read your article. Then, reluctantly and for the good of my soul, I read it (yes read it, instead of whisking through it) again and what a fantastic piece you have written. Your analysis really works and applies to every garden I know. Please write your book with case studies, it will almost certainly be the gardening book of the year. This is the most exciting, interesting and thought provoking article on gardens I have read, and that’s from someone who normally only enjoys the gossipy/informative style of Christopher Lloyd. Thank you Janna, brilliant, do write that book…. soon?
As a passionate garden-maker, I found it intriguing to read this piece about the experience of a garden without reference to anything botanical. As an architect, I found it intriguing to read about a sense of place that contains no verbiage about the elements which define the boundaries or physical character that define the space.
Without relying on an analysis of those two realms, I can hardly imagine how to get to an evaluation of the emotional impact of my experience.
my mother was an architect and said she did not design buildings, she designed spaces. She taught me to use materials only to guide the feet and the eyes – generally the bits in between had to tag along once the former moved! I design naked sites with ergonomics and constraints first and plants further down the list.
“ergonomics” – Are you talking about human interaction with physical and botanical elements? “constraints” – Are you contemplating topography and environmental hazard? If not, what else?
Janna, are you blogging about your new garden? Your blog went quiet on me, and I stopped reading, but would love to see what you do with your own space.
Really interesting but need to read it a few times more. I love Dan Pearson talking about a sense of place and for me the two heavens which have it are East Lambrook Manor, Somerset and Gravetye Manor, Sussex. They both take my breath away and install a sense of peace and harmony.
I can’t bear Wisley – a dreadful place and for some reason I have never taken to Dixter – might be envy or might be that it is too busy and too hard work for me to enjoy it. Everyone there seems so BUSY.
My own garden is a cottage garden and I strive for a sense of place above everything else. londoncottagegarden.com is my blog.
Julie Quinn, I am lucky enough to live 6 miles from East Lambrook and I agree it is heaven of a Somerset cottagey kind. I also love Snowshill Manor in the Cotswolds. Both were private creations. The big RHS gardens were conceived as plant showcases and educational centres, so it is not surprising they have the atmosphere of a supermarket. Dixter – a planter’s playpen and I agree, very busy.
Sometimes the hardest thing I have to do when designing a garden is leave a lot of the paper unmarked. I am getting better at resisting the temptation to earn my fee by adding Things.
well done Janna, I shall have to read this many times to get my head round this. It is refreshing to study well researched analysis about the garden experience, as opposed to vague opinion, usually employing words you have avoided like ‘lovely’ ‘nice’ and ‘charming’. My last garden visiting experience was vile, scoring zero on every one of your criteria, the comment from the NGS County organiser being ‘hey ho, it’s not to my taste, but hasn’t she worked hard?’ It’s open again on May 7th ‘for the delights of tulip time’. I shall read through your findings with future garden visits in mind.