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Yard stories: examining residents’ conceptions of their yards as part of the urban ecosystem in Minnesota

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Abstract

The residential yard is an integral part of the urban ecosystem. Individual preferences and social expectations influence homeowners’ yard care choices, which in turn affect urban ecology. However, little is known about residents’ conceptions of their yards as part of the urban ecosystem. We asked how homeowners conceive of their yard as part of the urban ecosystem by examining urban ecosystem concepts embedded within homeowners’ descriptions and stories of their yards. Our study sites included an urban and suburban area in the Saint Paul-Minneapolis metropolitan area of Minnesota, USA. We found that people’s understandings of their yards as urban ecosystems are complex but have prominent gaps. Salient concepts included biotic and abiotic interactions within the yard, linkages of human inputs and weeds across yards and watersheds, and yards as social space. Stories described managing dynamic ecological processes within yards to maintain a steady state and limiting linkages of human inputs beyond the yard. Prominent gaps included ecological cycles, biodiversity, and ecosystem services within yards and ecological linkages across yards. In general, people conceived of their yards in terms of inputs rather than cycles and in terms of creating barriers between their yards and surrounding areas rather than fostering ecological interconnections across them. We provide recommendations for resident outreach programs based on our findings. Finally, our study presents a challenge to urban ecosystem research to unravel where there are gaps in understandings of urban ecosystems versus where there is resistance to incorporating certain ecological interactions within the residential yard.

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Notes

  1. We conducted two non-response bias tests to compare survey respondents with the general population of the study areas: a comparison to Lino Lakes census data and a comparison of 1st wave respondents to 2nd wave respondents who might be more similar to the average resident. These tests indicate our survey respondents may contain biases for households that have owned their home slightly longer, identify racially as white, have slightly higher levels of education and income, and are slightly older. We also compared survey respondents who participated in discussions (“discussants”) with those who did not (“survey-only respondents”) in these two communities on a variety of criteria including: 1) demographic variables (i.e. education, race, length of homeownership, income, home value, children living at home, age, lot size) and 2) basic yard care (i.e. fertilizing, watering, knowledge of lawn inputs). Discussants and survey-only respondents showed no significant differences in regard to these variables, with the exception of Highland Park discussants being slightly older with fewer children living at home than Highland Park survey-only respondents, and Lino Lakes discussants being more educated than Lino Lakes survey-only respondents.

  2. For the following section, participants’ quotes are identified by meeting location, meeting number, and participant ID: “HP” indicates Highland Park, and “LL” indicates Lino Lakes; the number following HP or LL indicates the meeting number in Session One (1–4); and the last number indicates the participant’s ID.

  3. Creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea) is a perennial that grows low to the ground. It grows well in shade but can also grow in sunny areas (Brown 2000).

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems Program (BCS-0908998). We thank the survey respondents and discussion participants who participated in this study. We also thank GIS specialist A. Slaats for sample selection and creation of maps of the study sites. Special thanks to A. Woodside for logistical, methodological, and data entry support, K. Will for survey data entry, and L. Dorle for survey coding. We thank R. Brummel, A. Kokotovich, and T. Woods for comments on an earlier version of this article. We also thank our collaborators in our related research study, L. A. Baker, S.E. Hobbie, J. Y. King, and J.P. McFadden.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, 115 Green Hall, 1530 Cleveland Avenue North, Saint Paul, MN, 55108, USA

    Maria E. Dahmus

  2. Department of Forest Resources and Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, 55108, USA

    Kristen C. Nelson

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  1. Maria E. Dahmus
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Correspondence to Maria E. Dahmus.

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Dahmus, M.E., Nelson, K.C. Yard stories: examining residents’ conceptions of their yards as part of the urban ecosystem in Minnesota. Urban Ecosyst 17, 173–194 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-013-0306-3

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