2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Consumer horticulture (CH) systems (managed landscapes) serve as drivers of the agricultural economy, promoting the sale of specialty crops, goods, and services. They also provide environmental services that can promote sustainability. To gather on-site environmental data, a unique evaluation tool was developed. This tool protects the privacy of homeowners, is quick and efficient to apply, and creates accurate and reproducible results. Three areas of sustainability were selected because landscape characteristics associated with them have been fairly well defined. Shade trees impact home energy use. Landscapes that retain rainwater and reduce runoff promote improvement in water quality. Lastly, landscapes with flowers, sunshine, and greater plant variety provide pollinator habitat. A checklist with over 30 items was designed that could be used from the sidewalk or street to evaluate the extent of the three environmental services. Ten landscapes were selected in Decatur, GA (a city in the Atlanta Metropolitan area). The landscapes represented a range of summer and winter shade, ability to retain water on the property, and pollinator habitats. A 1.5-hour workshop was held at which 11 Extension Master Gardener (EMG) volunteers were trained to use the checklist. Two researchers and the EMG volunteers evaluated the houses in August of 2017. Participants were also asked to rank the curb appeal of each house on a scale of 0 (no appeal) to 10 (maximum appeal). Spearman Correlation Coefficients were calculated among participants for each variable, allowing for easy identification of individuals who needed additional training and variables with inconsistent evaluations. Volunteers appeared to have little difficulty assessing the level of shade provided by trees, the slope of the property, the nature of the vegetative coverage (e.g. turfgrass, herbaceous, woody ornamentals), the presence or absence of impervious surfaces, or the size and number of trees. Volunteers found it challenging to identify splash and rill erosion and to estimate the quantity of flowers on the property. This suggests the need for additional training on the corresponding aspects of the check list. Interestingly, shrubs and morning shade had significant negative correlations with curb appeal, but many other characteristics that either support or hinder sustainability (as defined above) had significant, expected positive or negative correlation. These results indicate that this methodology could be used to quickly and inexpensively assess the combined environmental impact of residential landscapes in systematic studies of large scale.