Evaluation of the winter landscape of the plant community of urban park green spaces based on the scenic beauty esitimation method in Yangzhou, China

Plant landscapes are fundamental components of the green space of urban parks and are often dynamic, changing throughout the year. Winter is a season with poor plant landscape effects in urban park green spaces. However, plant community landscapes in the winter in urban park green spaces could be further optimized. Here, we conducted scenic beauty estimation (SBE) of the landscape factors in 29 winter plant communities in four typical urban parks in Yangzhou, China using partial correlation analysis and multiple linear regression. The standard SBE values of the 29 plant communities ranged from -0.981 to 1.209. Complex plant community landscapes with abundant plant species, beautiful plant community morphology and obvious seasonal changes generally received high scenic beauty scores. Six landscape factors, including the diversity of plant species, the proportion of evergreen tree species, the morphological characteristics of plants, the ground cover rate, the overall sense of harmony and the color composition, greatly influenced the scenic beauty of the plant landscape in the winter. Generally, the results of this study provide insight into how the plant community landscape in urban parks could be improved.