Perception of the Vegetation Cover Pattern Promoting Biodiversity in Urban Parks by Future Greenery Managers

Urban greening should consider solutions that meet the needs of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, such as enhancing biodiversity. Urban parks can realize these needs. They often have a large area for designing greenery compositions with elements at the population, biocenosis, and landscape biodiversity levels. The research was carried out on plant diversity in parks with different gardening styles. The results were published. The analyses have shown which elements of greenery composition play the role in the conservation of plant biodiversity and which gardening practices they depend on. These results were used to develop a vegetation cover pattern to be applied by the managers of park greenery. The concept of this pattern has been characterized in detail. Its main principle is the coexistence of spontaneously occurring vascular flora and its patches with complexes of ornamental plants. The structure of the pattern is to be controlled by gardening practices varied in terms of the method and intensity of maintenance. A relatively high level of biodiversity should be provided by autogenous (tall tree-cluster, thicket, tall herb fringe community) and anthropogenic seminatural (flower meadow) elements. It was assumed that the applicability of the proposed pattern may depend on its perception by both green infrastructure managers and park users. To investigate this, a questionnaire study was conducted. The respondents were university students, i.e., future managers of greenery. They were also users of parks. The aims of this questionnaire were to investigate: (1) perception of greenery composition in relation to utility functions of urban parks; (2) perception of the proposed vegetation cover pattern; (3) perception of gardening practices to maintain the proposed vegetation cover pattern; and (4) applicability prognosis of the proposed vegetation cover pattern based on the results of research on perception. Most of the respondents accepted the proposed pattern and the gardening measures needed to maintain it. This was concluded as a chance to implement the pattern in parks, and at the same time to meet the needs of the EU Strategy 2030.