Evaluation of plant species in home gardens: A case study of Batumi city (Adjara)

The home vegetationfeatures in urban landscapes play an important role as indicators of urbanbiodiversity potential. They are also ornamental resources in the context oflandscape appreciation for the human environment. This study gives information about existing plant species that havealready been determined and evaluated according to plant characteristics (aesthetica visual, functional, socio-cultural and ecological) in the gardens of detachedhouses and housing estates in home areas in the city centre of Batumi. Therefore,this paper provides quantitative information on the distribution of plantspecies in the urban residential landscape areas of Batumi city (Adjara). Thisstudy covers a total of 100 home gardens. The home gardens are mainly based on4 different types which are traditional housing, detached housing, villa, andapartment blocks-housing estates. The results showed that there were 147species from 61 different families in these home gardens. There are more exoticspecies in residential gardens. Furthermore, the richness of species anddiversity are positively related to new urban development areas. However, itwas clearly determined that the vegetation structure has a tendency towardsornamental purposes, which is different from detached housing gardens and villagardens where fruit and other benefiting species are available.