Plant Color Transformation In Urban Parks Based On Horticultural Therapy

As an important part of urban green space,urban park is an important public infrastructure of the city.With the rapid development of Chinese society,in order to meet people’s higher requirements for the quality of human living environment,city parks located in the city center have been renovated and updated for many times,so that their environmental quality has been continuously improved and their service functions have been perfected.They not only provide leisure activities for city residents,but also carry people’s memory of the city’s history and culture.Therefore,urban parks are not only an outdoor leisure space for citizens,but also a haven for people to relax,adjust their emotions and relieve stress.How urban parks can provide more humanistic care for urban residents is currently receiving attention from researchers at home and abroad.Horticultural therapy carries out the interaction between people and plants through three elements:plants,environment and activities,stimulating human senses and triggering human physiological reactions in the process of interaction,thus regulating people’s emotions to achieve the purpose of relieving physical and mental health.The integration of horticultural therapy into urban park planning and design can create a beautiful urban environment and give people warm humanistic care at the same time.This study attempts to use horticultural therapy,combined with the psychological effect of color,to adjust people’s emotions by modifying the color configuration of plants in the park in order to achieve the purpose of physical and mental healing.In this study,five green areas with high pedestrian flow were selected and photographed for one year to record the color changes of plants in the park.The results show that the following three main problems exist in the plant landscape of the study subjects: 1.plant species are not rich enough,with only one or two plant colors in the same period;2.shrubs are planted too densely,causing plant landscape congestion;3.evergreen plants,mainly foliage,account for too large a proportion,and the seasonal changes of plants are not obvious.In response to the current problems,this study tries to suggest the transformation and optimization of plant colors of five sites in Mengyang Park from three aspects: plant species,site nature and aesthetics.Firstly,the plant colors should be enriched,and the number of plant landscape colors in the same period should be increased to three to four,and the overall number of colors should be controlled to less than seven,while the warm colors,cool colors and neutral colors of plants should be reasonably used to harmonize the overall plant colors of the landscape;secondly,the planting of plants should be sparse and dense,and a certain order and rhythm should be demanded to avoid visitors’ visual fatigue or sensory confusion during the tour.Finally,the types and numbers of flowering and deciduous plants in the site should be increased appropriately to create a rich four-season landscape.This study attempts to use horticultural therapy to optimize plant color and configuration to further enhance the quality of urban parks.It explores plant colors and configurations that allow for healing in urban parks through daily gardening activities.Using the physiological response of plant colors to the stimulation of human visual senses,we design colorful plant landscapes with seasonal changes to help citizens relieve physical and mental fatigue,soothe irritability,and achieve the purpose of healing.