cultivars present in home gardens provide an obvious starting point in determining the
amount of diversity (Hodgkin 2002). A total of 254 species of 197 genera belonging to 76
families have been taxonomically verified and identified as distinct species (Appendix 1)
whereas, many intra-specific species or varieties belonging to families such as
cucurbitaceae, compositeae, cruciferae, leguminosae and solanaceae could not be identified
due to lack of relevant literatures and lack of specific voucher specimens. The above list has
excluded the ornamental plants, which consisted of a total of 210 species or varieties of
flowers. Therefore, in the following season more taxonomic studies will be carried out to
verify the unidentified plant diversity. A complete inventory list of the species recorded from
the home gardens is given in Annex 1.
The 20 most common home garden species in each site are listed in Table 1 and ranked
according to the frequency of occurrence over all surveyed home gardens. However, potato,
bean and pea have been maintained in home gardens can also be found in larger systems.
Table 1. The top 20 most common home garden plants in Nepal
Hill Terai
Gulmi Freq Ilam Freq Jhapa Freq Rupandehi Freq
Potato 67 Chayote 86 Mango 75Sponge
gourd 73BLM 66 Cucumber 81Sponge
gourd 74 Cowpea 57
Radish 62 Radish 74 Kadam 69 Mango 53
Chilli 56 Dudhilo 66 BLM 68 Papaya 52
Banana 53 Taro 62 Potato 64 Ridge gourd 52
Beans 49 Binyee 62 Bakaino 64 Okra 50
Chayote 48 Akabare 55 Banana 59 Tulasi 49
Peach 46 Pumpkin 54 Radish 59 Chilli 47Nimaro 43Tree
tomato 54 Garlic 56 Egg plant 45
Pumpkin 39 Nimaro 53 Tulasi 53 Bitter gourd 45The total number of species in a single home garden was found to be a maximum of 87 with
more than 80% households having the species numbers up to 11-50. It was found that the
number of home garden species was comparatively higher in the eastern sites representing
the hill region than in western and higher in hills than in the terai region. There was a highly
significant (p<0.05) relationship between total species diversity and the ecological region.
The major influencing factors for species diversity are temperature, soil type, stresses and
other climatic parameters (Gautam et al., 2004). Thus, the home gardens of Ilam were
reported to be the richest as more than 60% of the home gardens had more than 30 species
per home garden and Rupandehi to be the poorest where more than 60% home gardens
had less than 20 species in a home garden (Table 2).
Composition of home garden plants diversity
Due to diverse climatic conditions, different socio-cultural settings and multiple necessities of
home gardens, farmers have maintained a unique composition of home garden species
diversity in their home gardens (Table 3). Across the sites vegetable plant diversity was
found the highest. However, for other component of home gardens, it varies according to site
specific characteristics. The richness in diversity of ornamental plants is comparatively
higher in the hills in comparison to terai sites and the use of diverse plant species for
religious-cultural purposes was found higher in the terai than the hills.