Preference and restorative potential for landscape models that depict diverse arrangements of defoliated, foliated, and evergreen plants

•Evergreen models had more restorative potential (RP) in January than in September.•Preference rose significantly between 0, 2, and 4 bits of plant palette entropy.•RP rose significantly between 0 and 2 bits of plant entropy.•Foliated models had higher preference and RP than defoliated.•Defoliation was indirectly associated with RP through preference. Increasing temperatures and exposure to sunlight in spring causes many deciduous, broadleaf plant species in temperate climates to foliate; decreasing temperatures and exposure to sunlight in fall prompts complete defoliation. Evergreen plants defoliate seasonally, yet retain green foliage throughout the year. One’s mood may also be affected by seasonal changes, though few studies have investigated whether seasonally induced visual changes to plants affect landscape preference and measures related to attention restoration. To address this need, we manipulated three variables in a Latin square to model nine color digital landscape views. Stimuli depicted scattershot, clustered, or formal compositions of defoliated, foliated, or evergreen plant species quantities that equaled zero, two, or four bits of Shannon’s Information Entropy, a mathematical measure of complexity. The dataset contained 59 respondents’ ratings of preference and restorative potential from September, and 47 respondents’ ratings of preference and restorative potential from January. Mann-Whitney test results indicate that September respondents rated evergreen scenes significantly lower in restorative potential than January respondents. Wilcoxon test results indicated that the foliage type and plant entropy values significantly affected preference and restorative potential ratings in September and January; results varied between the evaluation date, and preference and restorative potential ratings. The results of simple mediation analyses indicated that only the depiction of defoliation indirectly affected September and January restorative potential ratings through preference.