Urban gardens and sustainable cities explaining the environmentally beneficial behaviours that make a difference.

This research sought to explain why some people take up growing fruit and vegetables, home composting and outdoor drying, whilst others do not and why some of these people persist with these practices, whilst others do not. In this study the contributions that urban gardens made to the delivery of a wide range of sustainable development objectives were identified. Contributions were found to depend on extent of garden provision and a range of garden practices that had yet to be fully explained. A critical realist approach, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, was then used to build explanations and identify opportunities for behaviour change for each of the garden practices specified above. Key findings include that knowledge was a necessary condition for practice initiation and persistence. Furthermore, practice initiation was found to depend on indirect knowledge of what others do or what other people thought they should do and access to the material and non-material resources believed to be necessary to practice. In contrast, practice persistence was found to depend on direct knowledge of each practice. In addition, a number of mechanisms were identified that worked to either increase benefits, reduce risk or decrease the effort involved in initiating and then maintaining practice. The garden practices studied were found to be distinct from other Environmentally Beneficial Behaviours (EBBs) in providing immediate extrinsic and intrinsic benefits. Additionally for people who persisted with each practice, intrinsic benefits were found to be more salient than the personal costs involved in practice. Finally 'time of life' and the garden setting were significant to both practice initiation and persistence, whereas garden size was only significant to practice initiation. Overall this research hoped to have contributed to understanding the role of the garden in the city and to have identified practical steps towards achieving more sustainable cities.