The 2007 national census reported a total population of 140,080 of whom 70,967 were men and 69,113 were women; 12,615 or 9.01% of its population were urban dwellers. The majority of the inhabitants are Muslim, with 98.29% and the remaining are follower of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity. A Reconnaissance survey of the study area was conducted on October 2016 to see whether the area is suitable to meet the objectives stated during that period, overall information on the study area was obtained and representative sampling site were identified by consulting the elders and the residents of the town. The town was divided in to three representative sampling sites for data collection was based on the presence of traditional home garden practices. House holders in shaping and rented houses were purposively excluded since they do not have space to cultivate home garden plants. Therefore only households who have their own compounds and have access to and control over gardens plants were considered for study.
After the domain of the households to be considered for the study is demarcated as stated above sampling frame was made based on the study aims and available budget. According to , the site of the sample depends on available fund,time and other reasons and not necessarily the total population. Hence a total of a 180 households were randomly selected to determine the frequency of home gardens and to identify those types the list of all households that fell in the domain were received from the town residences and workers after which the total number of those households divided by a sample size to determine sampling intervals for each sample site during the random selection. For data collection and analysis 60 home gardens were preferentially selected from houses as pointed out by 11. When recording indigenous knowledge held by certain social groups the choice of key informants for the study was done through available sampling. Accordingly a total of 16 persons which are believed to be knowledgeable persons between the ages of were selected from different sites .Home gardens observations were made using observation checklist having columns of recording homegarden direction, plant diversity, and other important parameters and by laying quadrants in each homegarden.
Semi structured interview was made with systematically selected key informants and with home garden owners in each site during ethno botanical data collection.Questions were used during data collection included local name of the gardens species and purpose of the home gardens grown plants management’s practices. The importance of these home gardens for in-situ conservation of plants diversity and others data related to environmental change indicators. The key informants were selected based on the number of years they live in the area and the states of their homegarden and dependency. They were encouraged to discuss the cultural and ecological knowledge , to identify the plants with their use including the functions of the plants and parts used.A market survey was conducted to record the variety and amounts of food and other home garden plant products produced and supplied to the local market. Plants that have market values in Kombolcha market were identified through observation on the market survey, and interview by interacting with producers, seller, and buyer by using the starter question.Following Ethnobotanical data collection, descriptive statistical methods such as densities, frequencies, relative densities, Shannon and wiener index for species diversity and Sorensen’s index of similarities were used to analyze the data collected in the sites. Vegetation data collection carried out according to Whittaker 1993 principle.
According to the observation made out of 180 household 128 practiced home gardening in case of spatial arrangement of the homegardens 60 gardens were found in the back yard of their houses where as 18 were side gardens in some cases the gardens found on both front and side or side and back sides Table 1. Distinct variations in site diversity and composition were encountered increasingly with increasingly in holding site. As the site of home gardens increase, as diversity of plant species increases. Home gardens on the study area are composed of trees, shrubs, herbs, and climbing plants in different strata. They consist of trees approximately 10 – 15 m on the upper strata, fruit crops 1 m to 10 m middle strata and herbaceous plants up to 1 m from the ground strata.Local peoples have developed a general home garden structure with considerable diversity and flexibility that facilitates production of the major livelihood necessities. They have managed to select crops that are co-adapted and that give multiple benefits. Home garden are found surrounding the home of the owner where he/she gets daily requirement of fruit, vegetables, fodder, medicinal plants and some plants with cultural values. According to the information during semi structured interview of homegarden owners of home gardens in the study area most of them grow vegetables during the rainy season of the year and also in the time of water scarcity byfetching water and watering home garden cultivated plants at least twice a week, as it was mentioned by some of the owners of home gardens continuous production of plants for the house hold benefits, maintains the ecological system and makes the gardens sustainable.
Planting shrubs near the homegarden in erosion prone areas were management’s practices done by owners of home gardens in the study area. Home gardens were near house hold or further away 2 – 4 minutes walking distance with living houses in some study sites to get more cultivable land for home gardening and cope up with shortage of land. Home gardens could be observed with open areas, fenced or semi-fenced. Live fences with trees and shrubs to protect home garden species from predators were more frequently observed activity as management’s practices.It allows for greater participation by female members. According to , link between the local communities and plant resource is essential for conservation and as a part of biodiversity conservation.Homegardens are typically populated by a wide Varity of plants, varying from small herbs total trees. From this study 78 species which are under 35 families were recorded from 18 homegardens surveyed . The representative families and number of species under each family were found families like Solonaceae, and Rutaceae ranks top of the list 6 species each followed by Fabaceae and Lamiaceae consistes of 5 specieseach and Asteraceae, Poaceae, Rosaceae and Brassicaceae represented by 4 species each.