Landscape and Urban Planning 115 (2013) 3038

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Landscape and Urban Planning

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landurbplan

Research paper

Covenants, cohesion, and community: The effects of neighborhood governance

on lawn fertilization
James Curtis Fraser a, , Joshua Theodore Bazuin b , Lawrence E. Band c , J. Morgan Grove d
a
Department of Human and Organizational Development, Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt Univeristy, GPC Box 90, 230 Appleton Place,
Nashville, TN 37203, USA
b
Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vanderbilt University, USA
c
Department of Geography and Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, USA
d
Baltimore Field Station and Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Suite 350, 5523 Research Park Drive, Baltimore, MD 21228, USA

h i g h l i g h t s

Neighborhood governance inuences households lawn care decisions.

Members of homeowners associations apply more fertilizer to their lawns.
HOAs mediate effect of individual preferences and circumstances on fertilization.
Neighborhood associations have no impact on fertilization.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 2 October 2012
Received in revised form 20 February 2013
Accepted 27 February 2013
Available online 11 April 2013
Keywords:
Lawn fertilization
Nitrogen application rate
Neighborhood governance
Homeowners associations
Social cohesion
Non-point source pollution

a b s t r a c t
Lawn fertilization is increasingly recognized as an important contributor to non-point source pollution
in watersheds, but relatively little is known about how and why homeowners fertilize. Lawns are a social
expression of citizenship and belonging in many American cities, for a well-maintained yard reects a
homeowners work ethic as well as the pride in his home. There are also neighborhood inuences, as
homeowners conform to the dominant neighborhood standard of lawn esthetics. Homeowners associations (HOAs) are one way in which neighborhood lawn standards are maintained, as they use written
rules and unwritten expectations backed by legal means of enforcement to ensure compliance with
neighborhood guidelines. This paper examines household nitrogen fertilizer application rates in Baltimore, Maryland. We nd that households which place a high importance on lawn care and occupy more
valuable homes fertilize at higher rates compared with neighbors who place lower importance on lawn
care, and live in less expensive homes. We also examine the effects of different neighborhood governance
regimes, specically homeowners associations and neighborhood associations. Households who belong
to an HOA apply more fertilizer than those who do not, but households belonging to a neighborhood
association do not fertilize more than their counterparts who are not so afliated. HOA membership also
mediates the effect of lawn care importance and home value and moderates the effect of social cohesion
on fertilization application rates. HOAs shape household lawn behaviors: by obliging people to maintain
a high esthetic standard, they encourage higher usage of chemicals to attain those standards.
2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
This paper, stemming from the National Science Foundations
(NSF) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program in Baltimore,
reports on a study of households in and around the Gwynn Falls

This research was supported by the Human and Social Dynamics Program of the
National Science Foundation, grant number 0729387.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 615 343 7638.
E-mail addresses: james.c.fraser@vanderbilt.edu (J.C. Fraser),
joshua.t.bazuin@vanderbilt.edu (J.T. Bazuin), lband@email.unc.edu (L.E. Band),
mgrove@fs.fed.us (J.M. Grove).
0169-2046/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2013.02.013

watershed in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, Maryland. It

focuses on resident attitudes and preferences toward maintaining
a lawn and predicts how neighbors and neighborhood institutions
are associated with lawn fertilization rates. Many scholars hypothesize that neighborhood norms and institutions have a direct impact
upon household landscaping practices. Neighborhood norms are
expectations that neighbors convey to each other in their daily
activities. Neighborhood institutions homeowners associations
(HOAs) and neighborhood associations (NAs) also communicate
landscaping expectations, with the difference being the HOAs are
legal entities that can levy sanctions against households that do
not follow HOA covenants and restrictions (CCRs) while NAs do not

J.C. Fraser et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 115 (2013) 3038

have formalized rules of conduct that can be enforced legally. There

have been few parallel empirical studies that attempt to uncover
how these norms and rules operate through entire neighborhoods,
let alone comparing neighborhoods with different governance
structures (Blaine, Clayton, Robbins, & Grewal, 2012; Chowdhury
et al., 2011; Cook, Hall, & Larson, 2012; for some exceptions, see
Mustafa, Smucker, Ginn, Johns, & Connely, 2010). In Section 2 we
provide a review of the literature along with concepts and hypotheses. Sections 3 and 4 provide methods and results, and Section 5
contains a discussion and conclusions.
The lawn is one of the most enduring landscape esthetics of
neighborhoods in the United States, having roots that stretch back
to nineteenth century design. Andrew Jackson Downing, one of
Americas most prominent landscape architects during this period,
adamantly promoted the neat, well-manicured front lawn as the
ideal residential landscape design to which society should aspire
(Downing, 1844). During the twentieth century, the emerging lawn
industry, in combination with the growing number of professionals in planning, design, architecture, and agriculture, brought
Downings vision to the masses by educating homeowners on the
methods to achieve this landscape esthetic. Cultivating a lush,
green lawn through the use of newly available chemical fertilizers was commonplace in post-World War II suburbia as the lawn
and home became symbolic markers of the character of the people
who resided therein (Whitney, 2010). Assemblages consisting of a
wide variety of actors, such as fertilizer manufacturers, lawn care
companies, developers, landscape planners, and turf grass scientists, have promoted the residential lawn as benecial, suggesting
that well-maintained lawns provide stabilization of housing values,
recreation areas, and social status (Jenkins, 1994; Robbins, 2007;
Steinberg, 2006). Lawn industry advertisements in particular not
only draw connections between the maintenance of a high-input,
well-manicured lawn and being a good parent, neighbor, and citizen, but also claim that using their products will result in a homeowner becoming the envy of the neighborhood (Scotts, 2012).
Since the Second World War, the proportion of urban land in the
United States has expanded four times over (Milesi et al., 2005).
Residential lawns now cover roughly 2% of the land area of the
United States (Milesi et al., 2005), with a concentration in and
around urban areas, supporting a lawn care industry worth over
$57 billion (Harris, Martin, Polsky, Denhardt, & Nehring, 2012;
Haydu, Hodges, Hall, 2006; Milesi et al., 2005). Lawn fertilization accounts for a large portion of the total nitrogen budget
within many urban/suburban watersheds, and is estimated to be
the second largest source of household nitrogen in the US (Fissore
et al., 2011; Groffman, Law, Belt, Band, & Fisher, 2004). Potentially
harmful consequences of applying excessive lawn fertilizer include
nitrate leaching into groundwater, runoff into streams and surface water bodies, and nitrous oxide emissions into the atmosphere
(Birch, Gramig, Moomaw, Doering, & Reeling, 2011; Fissore et al.,
2011; Tekle, 2011). However, recent research on the biogeochemistry of lawns indicates that properly maintained and fertilized
lawns tend to show high rates of nitrogen retention and carbon
sequestration (Groffman et al., 2004; Raciti et al., 2011). In order to
mitigate the potentially damaging outcomes of excessive fertilizer
use, more knowledge is required about the range of fertilization
practices, and how neighborhood norms and institutions are connected to lawn care practices and the use of chemical fertilizers.
While cultural norms promoting the lawn have existed since
the 1940s, research has only begun to examine the ways in which
living in a neighborhood inuences behavior (see Cook et al., 2012;
Henderson, Perkins, & Nelischer, 1998). A growing number of studies have documented that personal preferences and neighborhood
norms likely play a role in maintaining a green lawn (Carrico,
Fraser, & Bazuin, 2012). Much less is known about the actual inuences of neighborhood characteristics upon lawn care practices,

31

such as reported levels of cohesion between households. Similarly,

neighborhood institutions may regulate the landscaping choices of
households, but there have been no studies that examine household
participation in lawn fertilization practices, or comparing these
rates in households under differing institutional and governance
structures.
2. Previous understanding of the drivers of lawn
fertilization practices
2.1. Background
While a number of studies have linked highly fertilized
lawns (e.g., high-chemical input) to harmful environmental consequences including nitrate leaching, algal blooms, eutrophication,
and nitrous oxide emissions contributing to anthropogenic climate
change (Cook et al., 2012; Whitney, 2010), the signicance of these
links depends on local soil conditions, climate, and the amount and
timing of fertilizer applications, prioritizing the need to understand
household and neighborhood scale lawn fertilization practices. For
example, nutrient runoff from residential areas contributes to the
overall nitrogen budget and eutrophication of the Chesapeake Bay
(Tekle, 2011), but effective and efcient reduction of these impacts
requires an understanding of which practices and under what conditions are most responsible.
Steinberg (2006) cites the example of Levittown, New York, built
during the 1940s and 1950s, as a neighborhood in which homeowners were required to tend to the parcel of lawn that accompanied
each dwelling. On a weekly basis, Levittown residents practiced
the tacit ecological principles of cultivating monoculture such as
mandatory watering. Those residents who did not mow their lawn
on a weekly basis would have it done for them and be billed by
the subdivision developer, Abraham Levitt. This system served at
least two purposes. First, the lawn was maintained in conformity
to the developers landscape design. Second, because homeowners
were counseled that tending to their own lawn in a similar manner would produce positive outcomes such as maintaining home
values in their neighborhood, there was a normative expectation
distributed throughout households. Households, not wanting to
stand out as being in violation of their neighbors expectations, governed themselves. In this way, neighborhood residents, whether or
not they agreed with the developers lawn expectations, supplemented the formal governing structure through informal sanctions
such as instructing their neighbors to tend to their lawn.
This is consistent with many studies that nd immediate neighbors mimicking one anothers lawn care practices. Nassauer, Wang,
and Dayrell (2009) sampled exurban homeowners to test the
hypotheses that homeowner perceptions of what constitutes an
attractive front yard would be affected by their neighbors choice
of yard, as well as by broader cultural conventions for landscape
appearance. They found that uniform neighborhood norms had a
substantial impact on respondents by inuencing them to choose
similar front yard landscapes. However, when there was a diversity
of neighborhood yards presented to homeowners, they reported a
wider range of landscape preferences (pp. 288289). This tends to
dissuade landscape design innovation as studies report the homogeneous form and social make up of suburbia seems to discourage
novel forms of front yard design (Blaine et al., 2012; Henderson
et al., 1998, p. 142).
This understanding on the inuence neighbors have on each
others landscaping preferences sheds light on how cultural norms
surrounding lawn care behavior have been reproduced, but not
everyone maintains a lush, green, weed-free front lawn. Homeowners with higher income and housing values are more likely to use
lawn chemicals, including fertilizer, than those with lower incomes
and housing values (Robbins, 2007). In a society where stratication

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J.C. Fraser et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 115 (2013) 3038

by housing value tends to produce socioeconomic homogeneity at

the neighborhood-level, it is useful to think about neighborhood
landscaping and the social ecology of group identity (Grove & Burch,
1997; Grimm & Grove, 2000; Grove et al., 2006).
2.2. Neighborhood norms and cohesion
Housing styles, yard characteristics, tree and shrub plantings, green grass, and type of lawnmower can be considered
socialecological symbols, reecting the type of neighborhood in
which people live (Grove et al., 2006). These socialecological
symbols can be interpreted as the outward manifestation of each
neighborhoods placement in an imagined social hierarchy of group
identity and social status in a city or metropolitan region. The desire
for a thick, green lawn might not be hard wired in the genes of the
urban homeowner or some deep, irrational whim. What drives a
person to fertilize and use other lawn chemicals might be exceptionally rational: such behavior might uphold the prestige of the
community and outwardly express each households membership
in a given territorial group (Mustafa et al., 2010). A persons chosen
lifestyle status symbols are outward manifestations of this sense
of belonging. In short, what people wear, drive, and inhabit are
best seen as choices made within a specic social context rather
than random market-based consumer decisions. There is not a single mass market, but a diverse array of clustered, lifestyle niches,
each representing a nuanced set of different group identities and
types of social status (Jenkins, 1994). From this perspective, neighborhood norms around landscaping and lawn care are viewed as
being differentiated, in part, by socio-economic status and attendant attempts on the part of higher-income groups to achieve an
ecology of prestige (Chowdhury et al., 2011).
Yet, the activation of neighborhood norms referred to as internalized social rules (Nassauer et al., 2009) are likely experienced
unevenly within neighborhoods. Typically, individual households
will act in ways that are perceived by their neighbors to conform to neighborhood expectations. Some of the reasons given
for this include not wanting to be socially ostracized from ones
neighborhood and the application of peer pressure by neighbors.
Alternatively, even in the face of strong neighborhood expectations
around lawn care, people do resist these expectations by not investing time, money, or effort into maintaining a lawn that conforms to
neighbors standards (Robbins & Sharp, 2003). Prior studies suggest
that the dominant norm in U.S. neighborhoods is to maintain a lawn
to some degree (Jenkins, 1994; Robbins, 2007; Steinberg, 2006). If
this is actually the case, then in neighborhoods with a high level
of cohesion there would be a peer pressure mechanism to compel
people to comply with a certain lawn esthetic.
Previous research has found that when individual households
transgress this moral economy by not participating in collective
lawn monoculture, responses have ranged from neighbors taking
matters into their own hands and tending to the offending yard
to neighborhood-based institutions seeking legal-juridical relief
through local government entities (Jenkins, 1994; Robbins, 2007;
Steinberg, 2006).
2.3. Informal neighborhood institutions
Neighborhood institutions are also believed to affect household landscaping behavior through the formalization of norms into
rules and regulations (Cook et al., 2012). Neighborhood associations
(NAs) govern without the use of legally binding covenants but can
still convey to residents that there are landscaping expectations. In
these types of neighborhoods, lawn norms may not be enforceable
through legal juridical means, but may rely on the cohesion that
engenders a sense of communal obligation to keep ones front yard
and lawn to certain standard.

2.4. Formal neighborhood institutions

Homeowners associations (HOAs) use formal private land use
law such as restrictive covenants in many of the nations suburbs and cities to impose landscape regulations on homeowners
(Tekle, 2011, p. 219). HOAs are different than informal neighborhood institutions (NAs) in that these entities may instigate legal
actions against homeowners who do not fulll their obligations
written in the neighborhoods covenants (CCRs). Neighborhoods
run by HOAs are inherently different than those relying on voluntary neighborhood associations or places where there are no
governing institutions because HOAs exist primarily to assure that
households conform to standards specied in the CCRs.
These formal institutions, in particular, have been able to successfully hold homeowners to strict guidelines in the case of
property maintenance, and homeowners have been legally forced
to submit to lawn norms that often necessitate the application of
lawn fertilizer (Cook et al., 2012; Tekle, 2011). As of 2008, over
300,000 HOAs in the United States have been created, nearly one in
ve Americans are now subject to rules developed by HOA governing bodies, and most of them have explicit landscaping clauses in
their covenants such as green lawn provisions (Wiseman, 2010).
Although empirical studies examining HOA inuences on lawn care
and fertilization have not been done, prior research on HOAs nds
that these institutions can be vigilant when landscaping infractions occur (Franzese, 2005). In addition, residential landscape
mimicry, whereby households keep their yards similar to those
of their neighbors, may increase when there is an HOA governing the neighborhood (Martin, Peterson, & Stabler, 2003). While
HOAs may not require the use of lawn chemicals (de jure), the
lawn esthetic mandated in many HOA-governed neighborhoods
almost always requires the use of them (de facto). In such a context, neighborhood cohesion and the informal moral economy of
the lawn is supplemented or potentially replaced by the HOA serving as a regulator of behavior. That said, there are certainly different
types of HOAs, and one recent study has found that HOAs are not
monolithic institutions driving high levels of resource consumption (Turner & Ibes, 2011, p. 1184). While the aforementioned case
study is suggestive, there are no empirical treatments that investigate whether or not lawn requirements of many HOAs lead to
greater resource use than in comparable neighborhoods without
HOAs.
While household interviews show that individuals report being
aware of and concerned about the potential environmental hazards
posed by applying chemical fertilizer to their yard, many still
engage in these landscaping practices (Carrico et al., 2012; Robbins,
2007). This suggests that household behavior, inuenced by the
production of neighborhood norms that have paralleled suburbanization and the growth of local formal and informal neighborhood
institutions, may be amenable to effective and targeted shifts in
these norms. Understanding the role and interactions between
individual (household) values and preferences and neighborhood
characteristics is critical to these efforts. Our study adds to the
extant literature by focusing on the relative signicance of informal and formal neighborhood institutions, as well as neighborhood
norms, on lawn fertilization.

2.5. Hypotheses
We frame our hypotheses relating to household participation
in lawn production based on the rate of fertilizer application at
the household level, and household to neighborhood level factors.
Many of the neighborhoods within which we interviewed people
had a lawn dominant landscape. Drawing on this discussion, we
hypothesize that:

J.C. Fraser et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 115 (2013) 3038

In this paper, we use surveys administered in thirty neighborhoods to test these hypotheses using a probit regression analysis.
3. Methods
3.1. Study site: Baltimore, Maryland
The Chesapeake Bay has received considerable scientic, political, and social attention as water pollution and the Bays declining
water quality have emerged as signicant concerns. Maryland, the
state perhaps most associated with the Chesapeake Bay (though the
Bays watershed extends into ve other states), illustrates well the
challenge of fertilizer use, as the demand for food and the social
desire for a green lawn conicts with the need for better water
quality in the highly visible and valued Bay. While agriculture is
the largest single use of fertilizer in Maryland and is therefore an
important part of the nitrogen load in the Chesapeake, it is not the
only source.
Residential fertilization of turfgrass is another important source.
The population of Maryland has steadily increased from 1.3 million
in 1910 to 5.7 million in 2010 (US Census Bureau, 2011). As household sizes have decreased, the population increase has necessitated
a very large increase in the number of housing units in the state. In
the last twenty years, as the population has increased by just under
one million people, the number of housing units in the state has
increased from 1.9 million to 2.4 million (US Census Bureau, 2011).
As population increases and towns and cities grow, they expand
onto agricultural land, resulting in less farmland but more residential lawn. Recent studies found that in two small urban watersheds
in Baltimore County, lawns accounted for between 25% and 75%
of the total area of residential parcels (Law, Band, & Grove, 2004;
Zhou, Troy, & Grove, 2008). With regard to fertilization, increasing residential development is problematic regardless of the lot
size, especially in the face of increasing home sizes. If homes are

0.16
0.14
0.12
Farm Ferlizer Use
(per acre)

0.1
0.08

Non-farm ferlizer
use (per housing unit)

0.06
0.04

Non-farm ferlizer
use (per person)

0.02
2010

2008

2006

2004

2002

1998

2000

1996

1994

Year

0
1992

1. Higher housing values will be associated with an increased rate

of fertilizer applied. Literature on the evolution of the American lawn suggests that while more people have a lawn it takes
considerable nancial resources to maintain a lush, green lawn
(Jenkins, 1994; Steinberg, 2006). Prior research nds a positive relationship between housing value and lawn fertilizer
use (Carrico et al., 2012), but to date no study has empirically
examined whether housing value is associated with the rate of
fertilizer use.
2. Households reporting a high level of neighborhood cohesion
in their neighborhood will have an increased rate of fertilizer
applied. While there is only one study that directly examines
the association between sense of community and fertilizer use
(Carrico et al., 2012), prior qualitative research nds that when
households that are integrated in their neighborhood and know
their neighbors, they tend to care more about how their lawn is
maintained (Nassauer et al., 2009; Robbins, 2007).
3. The existence of an informal (NA) neighborhood institution will
not be associated with increased rates of fertilizer use. Whereas,
informal organizations (NAs) lack the legal ability to maintain
expectations related to landscaping.
4. The existence of a formal (HOA) neighborhood institution will be
associated with increased fertilizer application rates. Neighborhood institutions are believed to affect household level behavior
by organizing around perceived neighborhood issues. Formal
organizations such as HOAs are charged with enforcing CCRs
which usually have some landscaping rules (Tekle, 2011). Furthermore, these institutions are oftentimes vigilant in their
efforts to address household infractions related to the upkeep
of lawns (Franzese, 2005).

33

Fig. 1. Tons of fertilizer used in Maryland, with linear trends, 19902010.

Source: Fertilizer quantities are from the Montgomery County of Department
of Environmental Development, Agricultural Services Division (2005) and the
Maryland Department of Agriculture Commercial Fertilizer Tonnage Reports
(19902010); population and housing unit counts are from the US Census Bureau
(2011); and farm acreage data is from the National Agricultural Statistics Service
(2011). Fertilizer quantities were not available for 2003, so the amount shown is the
mean for 2002 and 2004. The reason for the spike in fertilizer purchases in 2000 is
unexplained.

built on larger lots, there is typically more of grass to maintain

and fertilize; if homes are built on smaller lots, there is more
impervious surface which promotes runoff of rain, leading to more
stormwater runoff into water bodies. For example, Law et al. (2004)
found a small decrease in fertilization rates as lot size increased
(although total fertilizer application increases with area). In 2005,
there were nearly 375,000 hectares of turfgrass surrounding singlefamily homes in Maryland (National Agricultural Statistics Service,
2006), some 12% of the states total land area.
Given the substantial increase in residential development in
Maryland, it is no surprise that non-farm fertilizer use in the state
has increased markedly, rising from 55,000 tons in 1990 to over
200,000 tons recently; over the past ve years, non-farm fertilizer
use has comprised between 41% and 45% of Marylands total fertilizer consumption (Maryland Department of Agriculture, 2011).
Not only has the total quantity of non-farm fertilizer increased
in Maryland since 1990, per housing unit and per capita use
has also been on a steady upward trend during that time (see
Fig. 1).
3.2. Data collection
To collect data for this project, we used a stratied random
aspatial selection process. We stratied neighborhoods by housing
values and age of home in and around the Gwynn Falls watershed
in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, Maryland; the overall list
of approximately 200 neighborhoods was compiled from the Maryland State Department of Planning Property View database which
groups individual homes into neighborhoods based on subdivision
construction. Neighborhoods were not chosen to estimate statistics for the full Baltimore City and County region but to test for
household and neighborhood factors that inuence fertilization
rates; stratication was used to ensure that our sample represented a range of income levels and governance regimes, in part
because HOAs are more prevalent in newer, middle and upper
income neighborhoods. Once the neighborhoods were selected,
we sent letters to every household within the neighborhood to
inform them of our project and to alert them that our research team
would be conducting interviews in the neighborhood over a specic series of dates during the summer of 2008. Once we arrived in
the neighborhoods, groups of three graduate students went doorto-door seeking research participants. If a person consented to

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J.C. Fraser et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 115 (2013) 3038

Table 1
Variables in the analysis.

3.3. Data analysis

Variable

Description

Fertilization rate
(dependent variable)

The amount of fertilizer a homeowner applies to

his or her lawn, measured in kilograms of nitrogen
per hectare of lawn per year. The variable is used
in these analyses as a categorical variable: no
fertilization, low fertilization, medium
fertilization, and high fertilization
A single item on the survey, asking the respondent
to rate how important lawn care is to them,
ranging from 1 (not at all important) to 4 (very
important)
A scale based on four survey questions derived
from a previously published social cohesion scale
(Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997). Rather than
general cohesion among people with whom the
respondent has contact, we have rephrased
questions to focus specically on
neighborhood-based relationships. Its reliability,
as measured by Cronbachs alpha, was .79
Coding of the interviewees response to a question
about whether or not the household was a member
of a homeowners association. 1 = Yes, 0 = No
Coding of the interviewees response to a question
about whether or not the household was a member
of a neighborhood association. 1 = Yes, 0 = No
The assessed value of a respondents home.
Obtained from the Maryland State Department of
Plannings Property View database. Records are
specic to individual homes
The year in which the respondents home was
built. Obtained from the Maryland State
Department of Plannings Property View database.
Records are specic to individual homes
The size of the respondents lot (including the
footprint of any buildings). Obtained from the
Maryland State Department of Plannings Property
View database. Records are specic to individual
homes. Because lot size and home value are
signicantly correlated (see Table 3), when we
used this variable in our regression analyses, we
transformed the continuous measurement of lot
size into a dichotomous variable where 1 = lots
larger than .25 acres and 0 = lots equal to or smaller
than .25 acres
The size of the respondents lawn (the total lot size
less any area occupied by buildings, impermeable
surfaces such as driveways, and landscaping other
than grass). Calculated for each home based on
measurements taken by research team
Coding of the interviewees response to a question
about whether or not they had ever had the soil
under their lawn tested to see what kinds of
chemical additives may be required. 1 = Yes, 0 = No

Lawn care importance

Neighborhood cohesion

HOA membership

NA membership

Home value

Year home built

Lot size

Yard area

Soil testing

participate, one team member conducted a tape-recorded interview that contained both closed-ended (survey-type) and openended questions, one team member measured and photographed
the yard, and one team member observed the interview and took
eld notes. Interview questions included items around lawn care
practices, membership and participation in homeowners or neighborhood associations or other forms of neighborhood governance,
and neighborhood cohesion. A full description of variables from
the survey we used in the following analysis is included in Table 1.
Interviews lasted anywhere from 20 min to more than an hour in
duration. In this manner, our team collected 498 interviews in 30
neighborhoods with a response rate of 54%. Nine neighborhoods
had HOAs, fourteen neighborhoods had NAs, and seven had no
neighborhood governing organization. All recruitment and data
collection procedures were reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board.

The data generated by the surveys were coded and entered into
spreadsheets according to standard practice. To calculate a nitrogen application rate for each yard, we asked homeowners whether
their lawns were fertilized, and, if so, whether they did it themselves or if they contracted with a company, the product used,
how many times per year it was applied, and the size and number of packages used. We also measured peoples yards so that
we could calculate which portion of their lot is covered by lawn.
We then used these data, combined with the nitrogen content of
specic products, to estimate a rate of nitrogen application (kilograms of nitrogen per hectare per year kg N/ha/yr). Unfortunately,
there was a fairly signicant number of missing pieces of data,
usually when respondents could not remember which products
they had used on their yards and no longer had the package to
show us. Of the 160 households who self-fertilized in our sample, we could not calculate nitrogen application rates for 26%. To
solve this problem, we employed multiple imputation methods
(Allison, 2001; Horton & Lipsitz, 2001; Rubin, 2004) to calculate
the missing values. Multiple imputation involves using the known
data for the case to estimate missing data using patterns from
complete cases in the same dataset; the process is repeated multiple times to introduce variance, and the values calculated at each
pass are nally pooled. In this case, we used Rs mice (Multiple
Imputation through Chained Equations) package and its progressive mean matching function to impute missing nitrogen values
(Van Buuren, 2010; Van Buuren & Groothuis-Oudahoorn, 2011).
We had limited data on the fertilizer applied by commercial services: we had general patterns of use reported by several providers,
which were highly similar to each other and generally followed
Maryland turfgrass management guidelines (Turner, 2003), but
we did not have reliable application quantities for every provider.
For those missing, we estimated using the global provider mean.
Because of the inherent uncertainty involved in imputation and
the provider estimation, instead of treating the dependent variable as a continuous measurement of the fertilizer application
rate, we instead grouped each household into four categories: no,
low (.190 kg N/ha/yr), medium (90.1139 kg N/ha/yr), and high
(139.1400 kg N/ha/yr) fertilization. The categories were dened
to roughly produce equal numbers of households in each, though
specic cut-off values were adjusted slightly to correspond with
natural breaks in the distribution of the data so as to not separate responses which were very close in value into different
categories.
We used ordinal probit regression employing this categorical
variable to explore the determinants of fertilizer application rates.
Ordinal probit regressions are useful when the dependent variable
is ordinal with three or more categories; the output includes a series
of thresholds, which are similar to an intercept for each category.
Because we were interested in mediating and moderating variables,
we present the results of four regression analyses in the next section. Three are used to establish mediation, which requires that (1)
the independent variables regress onto the dependent variables,
(2) the independent variables regress on the mediator, and (3) the
independent and mediator variables regress onto the dependent
variable (Baron & Kenny, 1986). Models 1 and 2 satisfy the rst
and third requirements respectively with fertilization rate as the
dependent variable. We also present briey the results of a logistic
regression (used because the mediator, presence of a homeowners
association, is dichotomous) of our suite of independent variables
on the mediator to satisfy the second requirement. Model 3 also
uses fertilization rate as the dependent variable, employing two
interaction terms created by multiplying the respective variables
together, to explore the moderating inuences of different neighborhood governance models.

J.C. Fraser et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 115 (2013) 3038

35

Table 2
Descriptive Statistics.
Variable

Median

Mean (SD)

Range

Fertilization rate (kg/ha/yr)

Fertilization frequency (times/yr)
Yard area (m2 )
Lot size (m2 )
Assessed home value ($)
Year home built
Importance of lawn care
Neighborhood cohesion

28.50
1
418.06
768.90
271,030
1966
3
3.80

67.05 (87.70)
1.68 (2.93)
740.56 (1495.49)
1699.68 (5503.73)
354,157 (231,565)
1964 (28.9)
2.88 (.85)
3.74 (.79)

0679.39
024
9.2924201.23
149.3780,856.26
106,3802,210,650
18652007
14
1.005.00

Table 3
Correlations.

1. Fertilization rate
2. Fertilization frequency
3. Yard area
4. Lot size
5. Home value
6. Year home built
7. Lawn care importance
8. Neighborhood cohesion
9. Soil testing
10. HOA membership
11. NA membership
*
**

10

11

1.00

.43**
1.00

.09*
.04
1.00

.04
.04
.74**
1.00

.01
.02
.63**
.56**
1.00

.16**
.18**
.17**
.04
.14**
1.00

.23**
.19**
.01
.02
.01
.05
1.00

.05
.05
.10*
.07
.05
.23**
.03
1.00

.08
.15**
.14**
.07
.12**
.03
.01
.00
1.00

.14**
.10*
.02
.05
.17**
.34**
.08
.00
.01
1.00

.08
.11*
.08
.04
.12*
.51**
.08
.17**
.04
.57**
1.00

Indicates statistical signicance at p < .05.

Indicates statistical signicance at p < .01.

4. Results
4.1. Descriptive summary
Table 2 summarizes the descriptive statistics for the continuous variables we measured in the sample. Of the 498 respondents,
45.4% of our sample reporting using no fertilizer, 33.5% fertilized
their own lawns, and 21.1% contracted with a commercial service.
In terms of other chemicals, 49.0% used herbicides of various sorts
and 27.1% reported using pesticides. Twenty percent of the sample
had their soil tested to see which additives would be appropriate.
Regarding neighborhood governance, 27.5% of the households surveyed said they were governed by a homeowners association and
46.0% reported having a neighborhood association.
Table 3 lists the bivariate correlations between variables
included in this analysis. Yard area and lot size are signicantly correlated with each other, as are home value and lot size; these are all
associations which are standard in the real estate market (Anderson
& West, 2006; Cho, Clark, Park, & Kim, 2009). There are also small
positive correlations between a residents perceived importance
of lawn care, their ratings of their yards, and the quantity of fertilizer they use. There is a small positive relationship between
living in an HOA and fertilization rate. In addition, newer homes
are more likely to have HOAs. Perhaps the only surprising correlation is a small negative association between the year the home
was built and neighborhood cohesion; in other words, the older
the home is, the higher neighborhood cohesion the home occupant
reported, though older neighborhoods may have more established
social relationships which lead to increased levels of cohesion.
4.2. Predicting fertilization rates
The environmental impact of fertilization is dependent in part
on how much people fertilize. Just under half of our sample did
not fertilize at all; of the 55% of the sample that did, we estimate
that they applied an average of 136 kg of nitrogen per hectare per
year, or 2.78 pounds per thousand square feet annually. Nearly half
of all people who fertilize (46.6%) and almost one quarter of all

homeowners (23.9%) applied more nitrogen per application than

is legal under a new Maryland law, which caps single applications
at .9 pounds per thousand square feet (Fertilizer Use Act, 2011).
Our results are consistent with a recent report on fertilizer use in
Maryland that states that homeowners vastly over apply (Junkin,
2010).
Table 4 displays the results of three ordinal probit regression
models to predict nitrogen application rates. The rst model links
fertilizer use to soil testing, lot size, home value, and lawn care
importance. If a homeowner has tested his or her soil, he or she
applies more nitrogen. Lot size is also predictive of application rate,
with residents of larger lots applying less fertilizer per hectare,
consistent with Law et al. (2004). Home value also predicts fertilization rate: more expensive homes have higher fertilization rates.
For this rst model the single best predictor of a households nitrogen application rate is the importance they place on yard care. We
have attempted to understand the sources of these motivations
by developing statistical models regressing peoples stated yard
care importance ratings on various demographic and neighborhood variables. Despite several different model specications, we
are unable to explain any variance in the response; the fully specied model t is never any better than an intercepts-only model.
As the correlation analysis demonstrated, lawn care importance is
similar across respondents with different socioeconomic statuses
and in neighborhoods with differing levels of cohesion and different
forms of neighborhood governance.
The second model includes variables indicating whether or not
the homeowner is a member of a homeowners or neighborhood
association. Membership in a homeowners association, but not in a
neighborhood association, predicts fertilization rate. The results of
the logistic regression of lawn care importance, home value, soil
testing, neighborhood cohesion, and lot size on membership in
an HOA indicate that lawn care importance is predictive of HOA
membership (B = .31, SE = .15, p = .03), as is home value (B = .92,
SE = .32, p < .01). Soil testing, neighborhood cohesion, and lot size
are not predictive. Given that value and lawn care importance predict membership as well as fertilization rate when controlling for
membership, and that the magnitude of the relationship between

36

J.C. Fraser et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 115 (2013) 3038

Table 4
Ordinal regression results predicting lawn fertilization rates.
Model 1

1
2
3

Threshold

Neighborhood Cohesion
Lawn care importance
Home value
Lot size
Soil tested
HOA membership
NA membership
Interaction: NA Cohesion
Interaction: HOA Cohesion

Model 2

Model 3

SE

Wald CI

SE

Wald CI

SE

Wald CI

7.39**
7.93**
8.53**
.11
.40**
.54**
.39*
.42**

1.92
1.92
1.92
.07
.06
.15
.16
.13

[3.62, 11.16]
[4.15, 11.70]
[4.74, 12.30]
[.25, .03]
[.26, .53]
[.23, .841]
[.70, .07]
[.15, .69]

5.54*
6.08**
6.70**
.11
.34**
.40*
.35*
.39**
.38*
.01

2.04
2.04
2.04
.07
.07
.16
.16
.14
.16
.14

[1.53, 9.54]
[2.07, 1.09]
[2.68, 1.72]
[.26, .04]
[.19, .47]
[.07, .72]
[.68, .02]
[.11, .66]
[.06, .69]
[.31, .28]

5.29*
5.83**
6.47**
.32*
.35*
.44*
.30
.40**
1.42
.59
.17
.49*

2.10
2.11
2.11
.14
.07
.16
.16
.14
.75
.69
.18
.22

[1.16, 9.42]
[1.70, 9.97]
[2.32, 1.61]
[.62, .04]
[.20, .48]
[.11, .76]
[.72, .06]
[.12, .67]
[2.91, .06]
[1.96, .78]
[.20, .53]
[.10, .89]

Model t statistics

Value

df

Value/df

Value

df

Value/df

Value

df

Value/df

Deviance
Pearson Chi-square
Log likelihood
Akaikes information crit
Bayesian information crit

1009.98
1243.71
504.99
1025.98
1058.21

1237
1237

.82
1.01

932.81
1131.25
466.40
952.81
992.08

1115
1115

.82
1.02

926.60
1128.83
463.30
951.60
997.73

1113
1113

.83
1.01

Omnibus test
*
**

LR 2

df

LR 2

df

LR 2

df

54.28

<.01

47.90

<.01

54.11

<.01

Indicates statistical signicance at p < .05.

Indicates statistical signicance at p < .01.

home value, lawn care, and fertilization decreases with the inclusion of HOA membership, HOA partially mediates the relationship
between home value, lawn care importance, and fertilization rate
(Baron & Kenny, 1986). In the presence of an HOA, wealth and the
importance a person places on lawn care inuence fertilization less.
To some degree, we can say that HOAs homogenize fertilization
decisions: everyone living in an HOA fertilizes more, and individual
circumstances and preferences affect the relationship less.
The third model includes interaction terms between the two
types of associations and neighborhood cohesion. The effects for
lawn care importance, home value, lot size, and soil testing are
nearly identical to the model without the interactions. The main
effect for the presence of a neighborhood association is still not
signicant, nor is its interaction with neighborhood cohesion. The
main effect for cohesion is signicant, but the main effect for homeowners associations is no longer signicant.
However, because the interaction between cohesion and homeowners association is signicant, we can say that the presence of an
HOA moderates the effect of neighborhood cohesion on fertilization
behavior. Fig. 2 graphically illustrates the relationships. Neighborhood cohesion has a negative effect on fertilization where there is
no HOA.

N Quanty
(Change in Probits)

1
0.5
0
-0.5

Presence of NA or no
associaon

-1

Presence of HOA

-1.5
-2
1

Neighborhood Cohesion
Fig. 2. Moderation effect on the relationship between neighborhood cohesion and
fertilization quantity by homeowners associations.

5. Discussion and conclusions

By the mid-twentieth century the lawn had become a dominant
cultural landscape in neighborhoods across the country. The proliferation of suburban neighborhoods was matched by professionals,
the lawn industry, and popular media all telling the homeowner
that the appearance of the home and yard reected their character, and neighbors were expected to cooperate in the interests
of uniformity rather than indulge their individual tastes (Jenkins,
1994, p. 99). Previous research on lawns has either provided some
evidence of neighborhood norms or neighbors inuencing household lawn cultivation including mowing, watering, and chemical
applications (Carrico et al., 2012; Nassauer et al., 2009; Robbins,
2007; Steinberg, 2006; Tekle, 2011; Weigert, 1994; Whitney, 2010).
Our study adds to this growing literature by examining the impact
of social cohesion and neighborhood institutions on household
lawn fertilization, nding that these aspects of neighborhood life
play an important role, although these factors operate in varying
ways.
Our rst hypothesis, with an increase in housing value there will
be an increase in rate of fertilizer applied, was supported by our ndings. To the extent that we are able to use home value as a proxy
for income, these results indicate that people with higher incomes
apply more fertilizer than lower income people. This link may be
that people with higher incomes have more disposable money to
spend on lawn care. While people in lower-income neighborhoods
judge lawn care importance to be equally important as people
in richer neighborhoods (the correlation between the lawn care
importance and housing value is zero), their ability to pay for fertilizer may be the limiting factor. Moreover, higher income people
may perceive a greater return on investment for their yard efforts:
the resale value of homes in higher value neighborhoods may be
more affected by yard quality and appearance than are homes in
lower value neighborhoods. Interestingly, lot size (which is positively correlated with home value) is negatively associated with
fertilization rates. This is similar to the ndings of Law et al. (2004)
who suggested that large backyards are fertilized at lower rates
than front yards.

J.C. Fraser et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 115 (2013) 3038

The second hypothesis, with households reporting a high level of

neighborhood cohesion there will be an increase in the rate of fertilizer applied, was not supported. In the rst two models, cohesion
was not a statistically signicant predictor of fertilizer rate. Model
three shows that increasing cohesion in the absence of an HOA
is associated with lower fertilizer application rates. One possible
explanation from our interview transcripts is that non-HOA neighborhoods report coming together around concerns other than lawn
care including trafc, zoning ordinances, and crime. Alternatively,
where there is an HOA, then the more cohesive a neighborhood the
more fertilizer its residents use, in part because one of the tasks of
the HOA is to encourage and regulate a high quality turfgrass-based
landscape.
Our third hypothesis, with the existence of an NA there will be
an increase in the rate of fertilizer applied, was not supported. NAs
lack the legal means to enforce landscaping behavior. It is possible
that these organizations communicate landscaping norms throughout a neighborhood, but because these are voluntary institutions,
households can choose to participate or not.
Finally, our fourth hypothesis, with the existence of an HOA there
will be an increase in the rate of fertilizer applied, was supported.
Our study empirically validates other scholarly work that hypothesizes the signicance of neighborhood institutions on residential
landscaping practices (Chowdhury et al., 2011). Neighborhoods
that are governed by HOAs are different than neighborhoods that
have voluntary-membership associations or no associations at all.
Households living in HOA neighborhoods not only fertilize at higher
application rates than non-HOA neighborhoods, but the presence
of an HOA decreases the effects of lawn care importance and housing value on fertilizer rate. This means that HOAs mediate the
impacts of the variables pointing toward the signicance of the HOA
neighborhood institution itself as a driver of fertilizer application.
Further, while HOAs govern landscaping behavior by use of rules
and regulations, interviews with households indicate that these
neighborhood institutions rarely had to become directly involved
in lawn care disputes. In fact, lawn care disputes in HOA neighborhoods were virtually nonexistent, and households reported
that neighborhood expectations for a green, well-manicured lawn
were clear and adhered to by residents. This is suggestive of the
authority HOAs typically exhibit, especially in neighborhoods that
reported higher levels of neighborhood cohesion. Alternatively,
locational decisions to live in an HOA-governed neighborhood may
be partially based on landscaping preferences. Finally, neighborhood cohesion negatively predicts fertilizer use in neighborhoods
without an HOA. This may indicate that when people in nonHOA neighborhoods report neighborhood cohesion, the lack of a
legal neighborhood institution relaxes lawn care expectations providing residents more agency in deciding how to care for their
lawn.
Our study suggests that household landscaping behavior is, in
part, based upon personal preference. Indeed, our respondents
that reported higher levels of lawn care importance also reported
higher levels of fertilizer application. In addition, lawn care importance does not seem to vary systematically across different kinds
of households and neighborhoods. Yet, other studies have shown
that peoples seeming personal preferences are shaped by their
neighbors perceived or actual landscaping choices (Carrico et al.,
2012; Nassauer et al., 2009). We suggest that importance of lawn
care is produced through social relations including those that occur
between neighbors and with neighborhood institutions. Informal
and formal neighborhood expectations are internalized as individual residents come to understand themselves as being part of
a particular type of neighborhood (Tekle, 2011). Household locational choice also may tend to reinforce neighborhood norms,
particularly when buying into a neighborhood with a formal governance structure.

37

In the case of high-value, HOA neighborhoods, our ndings tend

toward agreement with prior work that suggests that there exists
an ecology of prestige wherein household patterns of consumption
and expenditure on environmentally relevant goods and services
are motivated by group identity and perceptions of social status
associated with different lifestyles (Zhou et al., 2008, p. 746). And,
similar to Blaine et al. (2012), while neighborhood norms and the
status associated with them may be a motivating force in getting
households to conform with lawn and landscaping expectations, a
great deal of household motivation is also accounted for by compliance. That is, in neighborhoods that have high expectations for
lawn care, it is likely that people are fertilizing in order to comply
with neighborhood expectations. In fact, when asked to rate their
lawn, those respondents that stated that their lawn was equal to
or better than their neighbors were also more likely to fertilize at a
high rate.
Neighborhoods matter both in terms of formal governance
institutions and in terms of neighborhood norms and social ties
for landscaping and lawn fertilization. Moreover, residential
landscaping decision-making and behavior can have a range of
potentially harmful effects upon the ecosystem. While the household level may be one target for interventions that seek to reduce
fertilizer use when it is not necessary or benecial, it is likely that
in many neighborhoods governed by formal institutions such as
HOAs there will need to be other programs that operate to shape
neighborhood norms. One such effort is the Sustainable Sites Initiative, a program to promote sustainable land development and
management (Sustainable Sites Initiative, 2012). Another potential
resource is agricultural extension agencies that provide guidance to
neighborhoods on landscape practices and their effects on the environment. Finally, municipal government regulations and initiatives
may serve to shape the ways in which neighborhoods manage
their lawns. In order to promote appropriate lawn fertilizer use
and consequently protect the environment from potential damage
caused by excess fertilizer application, it is likely that a combination of efforts aimed at households and neighborhoods will be
needed.

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