Leisure and the home garden

Abstract

Research into recreation and leisure activities of New Zealanders consistently ranks home gardening in the most popular five activities. This thesis aimed to explore the phenomenon of home gardening both as experience and activity and to identify the attributes of leisure which can be related to this. Prominent leisure theories have led to both the quantitative and qualitative analysis of leisure activity and both have informed this study. Available literature on gardening tends to focus on such details as what to do and how to do it, or where and when, leaving a glaring gap on why people garden. A survey of twenty residents of Naenae, a large suburb in Lower Hutt, investigated the main variables of age, length of residency, home ownership, types of garden, care of the garden, time spent in gardening, frequency of garden use, types of activities in the garden, privacy, and the positive qualities of having a home garden. The results show that the home garden is a site of activity and experiences which may be attributed as leisure for the majority of survey respondents, as well as the arena for the work-like tasks of gardening itself.