Garden as society

Exploring the Values Embedded in Community Garden Aesthetics

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6414370
AutoresAzucena Lucatero (0000-0003-0769-3084), Madeleine Fairbairn (0000-0003-0168-4179)
Año2025
Volumen42
Número3
Páginas1933-1951
Fecha de publicación2025-04-23
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAgriculture and Human Values (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0889-048X • E-ISSN: 1572-8366
EditorialSpringer Nature (Netherlands) (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1007/s10460-025-10745-w
OpenAlexW4409728826
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas78

Despite the benefits of ecological complexity, tidy and ecologically simple landscapes are the hegemonic aesthetic norm in many rural and urban settings. In rural agriculture, tidy landscapes of perfectly spaced, weed-free rows are often taken as an indication of farmer skill. Meanwhile, suburban yard owners face cultural pressures to maintain immaculate lawns through intensive lawn care regimens. In both contexts, an aesthetic of tidiness can contribute to dire ecological outcomes. Community gardens have potential to break the mold of tidiness. They are influenced by both agricultural and suburban aesthetic lineages but also by alternative agri-food movements, which place a higher value on sustainable practices, opening possibilities for alternative aesthetic outcomes that support greater ecosystem health. Drawing on a photovoice project and semi-structured interviews with community gardeners in the California central coast, we investigate the values that drive community garden aesthetics. We find that tidiness remains the hegemonic aesthetic, upheld by formal and informal governance mechanisms as well as personal taste. However, an alternative aesthetic, which we term “wildness,” provides a counterpoint to tidiness that can contribute valuable ecological resources to community gardens. Ultimately, however, we find that garden tidiness is not necessarily mutually exclusive with a sustainability orientation and wildness was not always the product of sustainability values

Aesthetics · Art · Environmental ethics · Environmental sociology · Social science · Sociology · Organic Food and Agriculture · Philosophy · Urban Agriculture and Sustainability · Urban Green Space and Health