Please render natural=shrubbery

[hungerburg]

Since hedges do not render as areas, cf. https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/3844, a limited but highly prolific number of people use natural=scrub to map, what are in my understanding mostly hedge-like features: barriers to keep pedestrians from taking shortcuts. See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural=shrubbery for complete description and account of other use cases.

As of now, this custom is regionally limited, the Netherlande being a prime spot of exploding use: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:ScrubByNumbersNLvsAT.png shows a comparison with use in Austria. In Austria, like in most of the world, such "shrubberies" are not mapped at all, not the least maybe, because there exists (not until recently) no valid tagging for them.

As the trend to map micro features is expected to continue ever stronger, there will be demand for a tag to correctly map those "shrubberies". As the people doing such mappings are very sensitive to rendering, it is to be expected that they will not use the concise tag, but the one that renders.

Therefore my plea to render natural=shrubbery. Give the authors of the shrubbery proposals a chance of having created a successful tag. Apart from preventing the information loss by dilution of millions of currently concise mappings of actual scrub, I think also the cartographers work will be a little easier, if a tag, that starts rendering at z7 or so will not be used on perhaps even more millions of features, that range from closet sized to the size of a medium flat.

[imagico]

Very new tag, zero uses before February this year, no consensus on its use.

Current use (around 2000 times) is fairly consistently applied for urban greenery. But to a significant extent for polygon mapping of linear hedges for which linear barrier=hedge (+width=/height=) is the more established (and semantically more meaningful) method of mapping, see for example:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/914194296 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/562827568 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/926141288 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/916799341 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/917567385

I am not opposed to rendering this in principle but right now this tagging competes with barrier=hedge (on linear ways), natural=scrub and natural=heath and to some extent also leisure=garden. I think it needs to establish its meaning and use relative to these tags with some clarity and acceptance among mappers before we can consider supporting it here.

[jeisenbe]

This tag is currently only used in the Netherlands, England and a couple other spots. It needs to be much more widely used before it could be rendered here:

I believe we should close this issue for now, but it could be reopened in a year or two if the situation has changed and the tag has been widel adopted by mappers in many countries.

[RedAuburn]

I think this should be reopened, natural=shrubbery is now consistently used for an area of shrubs, and the meaning is clearly stated on https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural%3Dshrubbery

it is also being adopted very quickly, as can be seen from the chronology graph:

Adding Carto rendering would be beneficial as it would prevent tagging for the renderer in lots of cases, for example i've seen a lot of areas that should be tagged shrubbery tagged as grass, scrub, garden etc.

[kocio-pl]

OK, it's over 5k now. This should be quite easy to implement, is anyone ready to prepare PR?

[jdhoek]

@kocio-pl Done!

(location in OSM)

[imagico]

Note the assessments from me in https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4473#issuecomment-921750738 and from @jeisenbe in https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4473#issuecomment-922421023 still apply. The use of the tag has slightly increased but it still has no broader acceptance. It is used by individual mappers in localized concentrations but there are no places where it is the dominating tagging for anything specific.

Overall at the moment where it is used it is essentially used as an umbrella tag for urban and less frequently near urban rural greenery. Its use in particular overlaps with what is much more commonly tagged (roughly in that order of prevalence):

• leisure=garden
• natural=heath
• natural=scrub
• barrier=hedge - either instead of what is more commonly mapped with linear hedges (like https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1015021223) or in addition to linear hedge mapping (like https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1028424094)
• natural=shrub (like here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1020960779)
• natural=forest (including double tagging like here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/918418611)

and just as a generic urban greenery tagging (like https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1046678798)

In other words: Its use has semantically widened compared to my previous assessment from last September but is is not in any way better defined in its delineation towards those tags which are much more commonly used for urban greenery and in a much better defined way. Like i wrote above:

I think it needs to establish its meaning and use relative to these tags with some clarity and acceptance among mappers before we can consider supporting it here.

And to be clear (because this seems to sometimes cause misunderstanding): This refers to the de facto meaning and de facto acceptance among mappers.

[RedAuburn]

Overall at the moment where it is used it is essentially used as an umbrella tag for urban and less frequently near urban rural greenery.

That's what a shrubbery is, yes.

Its use in particular overlaps with what is much more commonly tagged (roughly in that order of prevalence):

• leisure=garden
• natural=heath
• natural=scrub
• barrier=hedge - either instead of what is more commonly mapped with linear hedges (like https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1015021223) or in addition to linear hedge mapping (like https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1028424094)
• natural=shrub (like here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1020960779)
• natural=forest (including double tagging like here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/918418611)

These are all used interchangeably because there is no tag for shrubbery. when you look at the areas they describe on aerial imagery, they are all the same sort of thing. (apart from natural=forest, that should be grass)

In other words: Its use has semantically widened compared to my previous assessment from last September but is is not in any way better defined in its delineation towards those tags which are much more commonly used for urban greenery and in a much better defined way.

I disagree entirely, the use is semantically widening because people want to use a tag that renders, so when natural=shrubbery doesn't, they use something similar. If natural=shrubbery was only used to mean the same thing as landuse=grass, for example, the tag wouldn't need to be proposed.

[jdhoek]

The use of the tag has slightly increased but it still has no broader acceptance. It is used by individual mappers in localized concentrations but there are no places where it is the dominating tagging for anything specific.

Well yeah, without rendering in what is effectively the face of OpenStreetMap, using this tag is pioneering. I am pleasantly surprised it is growing as fast as it is given the lack of rendering.

Most mappers just don't bother and use natural=scrub for planted and managed shrubs, and for hedges mapped as areas too (especially with the support for rendering barrier=hedge withdrawn in Carto). It sucks having to use tags that don't render when your local newspaper even uses OpenStreetMap with the Carto layer for its articles, and I can understand the pragmatic approach of these mapper. But is this what we want to stimulate mappers to do?

There are a bunch of mappers here who — while not necessarily agreeing with the method of just removing rendering — at least understand your viewpoint regarding hedges mapped as areas and the misapplication of area=yes, and who find that misusing natural=scrub for urban managed greenery is hardly ideal from a semantic perspective. natural=shrubbery is at least an effort to solve these issues.

[imagico]

For better understanding (we should really put this into some kind of FAQ document because it turns up so frequently): One of our core goals is to support mappers in consistent use of tags and prevent unfavorable fragmentation of tagging. So if we'd communicate to mappers: You can either map urban greenery in a semantically well defined and differentiated fashion using leisure=garden, natural=heath, natural=scrub, barrier=hedge, natural=shrub etc. like the vast majority of other mappers do or you can tag it undifferentiatedly as natural=shrubbery then we'd have failed fundamentally in doing our job.

As i have expressed above i am in principle not opposed to rendering natural=shrubbery if it develops into a tagging for specific forms of urban greenery (in particular for what barrier=hedge has been partly overloaded in use on polygons in the past leading to semantic ambiguities) and consensus develops among mappers about the semantic delineation of this towards other tags. If any trend would become visible in direction of a well defined meaning we could try to think of a rendering that supports specifically such use and discourages a broader generic use for any and all urban greenery. But so far there unfortunately is no indication that something like this is happening. Instead the most dominant use of the tag is generic decorative greenery, mostly not very tall, i.e. heath height, which otherwise is predominantly tagged leisure=garden or natural=heath.

[hungerburg]

Do I follow up correctly: natural=heath suggested tagging for groundcover berberis eg?

[imagico]

Do I follow up correctly: natural=heath suggested tagging for groundcover berberis eg?

Well - what i suggest is not really the point here - natural=heath is however quite frequently used in urban contexts - often for maintained features. Like for example:

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/321018325 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/572438946 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1039907307 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/995551598 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/633616777 https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/925076690

[imagico]

See also #4251 by the way - where we have considered and positively assessed rendering landuse=flowerbed as a well defined and consistently used tag for a specific type of urban greenery. If use of natural=shrubbery would develop in a similarly positive fashion both could be rendered - provided that a suitable design can be found that fits into our design schema and that is intuitively understandable.

[hungerburg]

I clicked all the links. I guess, that all the objections against rendering this tag here would just the same apply on the usage of the heath tag there, if it was not already in wide use for something different.

To say it more directly: The examples are all mapping for the renderer.

[imagico]

natural=heath as a tag has its own issues, in particular its quite frequent use for mapping herbaceous vegetation (see here for some more lengthy discussion). But it is overall still fairly consistently used for something rather specific - that is low growing woody vegetation. I can't say for sure without on-the-ground inspection if all the examples match this core use but it is quite possible that they do.

But lets not get side tracked - the fact that we certainly have tags that we render for historic reasons despite them being no more used in a well defined fashion (which as indicated does not apply for natural=heath) is not a good reason to start rendering further tags with similar problems.

[jdhoek]

How is natural=sbrubbery not well defined and consistently used? All tags have examples of not being used correctly, even landuse=flowerbed. If you use that as a criterium no new tag can ever be included in Carto.

[imagico]

The question if a certain tag is used correctly by some subjective opinion about the meaning of a tag is off-topic here. And as explained above we have clear consensus that landuse=flowerbed is used quite consistently with a fairly precise meaning.

natural=shrubbery OTOH is - as explained - used in a broad meaning for any and all kinds of urban and near urban greenery (anything that is alive and green in an urban or near urban environment) - but only in a very sporadic and patchy fashion by individual mappers while most other mappers use more specific tags (see above) to map the same things. Within this semantic domain of generic urban greenery so far no clear core focus of the tag on something more specific that we could realistically support by rendering it, like for example the polygon mapping of barrier=hedge like stuff (i.e. fairly compact and homogeneous scrub plantations) can currently be observed. As much as i regret this on some level (because i think it would be highly beneficial if mappers had well established and nuanced ways to map plants in urban environments - be that in the form of new primary tags like this or secondary tags to already existing features) this is - for the moment - a reality we cannot ignore.

Side note: I have observed the struggles of mappers to invent new tags within the OSM tagging scheme in recent years on many occasions and in particular what typically does not work these days any more although it might have worked in the early years of OSM. I have written down some advice based on these observations last year to help mappers inventing new tags to avoid the most likely errors.

[vincentvd1]

Overall at the moment where it is used it is essentially used as an umbrella tag for urban and less frequently near urban rural greenery. Its use in particular overlaps with what is much more commonly tagged (roughly in that order of prevalence):

• leisure=garden
• natural=heath
• natural=scrub
• barrier=hedge - either instead of what is more commonly mapped with linear hedges (like https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1015021223) or in addition to linear hedge mapping (like https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1028424094)
• natural=shrub (like here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1020960779)
• natural=forest (including double tagging like here: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/918418611)

It is not really fair to address the double tagging here. While the rule is: no tagging for the renderer; a lot of mappers still do, that is just a fact. A few months back, I saw a changeset with the text "shrubbery -> scrub". So the user found shrubbery the correct tag but because it didn't render, he retagged it. I later explained the situation and the tagging rule above to him and he is correctly using shrubbery now. So I know for sure that when we get render support on Carto, the (even more correcter) use will increase. I have tagged a lot of natural=scrub myself because there was no other tag like natural=shrubbery

And wiki pages are not static. They change over time with new insights. Over time, we can clearify some examples and definitions but I don't see a significant misuse of the tag yet. And a lot of people already ackowledged the gap that shrubbery will fill and support this tag (the very steep graph supports this despite lack of rendering). Render support will allow the tag to grow further and to mature just like many other tags.

[hungerburg]

I fully support the reasoning of imagico. A tag gets the meaning from its usage. I do feel bad though, when this shines a light on the openstreetmap community, that they differentiate vegetation solely by how tall it grows. A heath, a scrub, a wood are much more that different height plants. They are home to different kind of animal species too. They do well in certain climates more than in others, and so on. A single tag combination "natural=vegetation+height=nn" does not do the same job as tagging heath, scrub or wood.

[tjur0]

I can see where imagico is coming from.

I agree that natural=shrubbery had a wider use than the more specific tags like natural=flowerbed or barrier=hedge. However, the majority of natural=shrubbery is not used as general urban greenery. It is used as a specific type of plant, with a specific sociological meaning.

I do think some of the usage of natural=shrubbery is incorrect, and I think that we should correct these mistakes. But these mistakes are in the minority. The majority of natural=shrubbery is correctly mapped.

It is unfair to discredit a complete tag based on a small percentage of the usage.

I completely disagree with the suggestion that the objects that currently are tagged with natural=shrubbery could be tagged with another existing tag. And suggesting this shows a lack of understanding towards the different vegetation in the streetscape.

According to the usage, most of the natural=shrubbery is used in urban environments. Specifically on the side of streets and roads. Therefore, these objects are actively maintained and artificial planted by humans, this fact alone rules out both natural=shrub and natural=heath as a substitute for these objects.

Another suggestion is to use leisure=garden, that suggestion is even less appropriate, a shrubbery is not a garden. Sure, a garden could contain shrubberies. In the same way a garden could contain trees, grass, and water. But a shrubbery is not meant to be visited or to be walked through.

Tagging shrubberies with any tag of the above would be a clear example of tagging for the renderer.

natural=shrubbery is specifically used as the maintained and artificial counterpart of natural=shrub. And is therefore not any wider than natural=shrub in any way.

The fact that natural=shrubbery is used in localized concentrations should not be a reason not to render natural=shrubbery. the localized concentrations are a result of the low number of mappers willing to use a tag that does not get rendered. And by the large number of shrubberies in the world.

I think this tag should be rendered, mainly because there is no alternative tag to map shrubberies.

[imagico]

Please no tagging discussion here - as said many times (and also on this issue already - see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4473#issuecomment-1092758156) if a certain use of a certain tag is correct or not and if a certain tag should be used for certain things is not relevant on this issue tracker. If anyone wants to put into question my analysis of the actual use of the tag in https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4473#issuecomment-1092083729 please do so - but please provide evidence and not just make unsubstantiated claims.

[tjur0]

with respect to you

Please no tagging discussion here

I did not start that discussion

provide evidence and not just make unsubstantiated claims.

That is a bit hypocritical, data is evidence, finding and linking a handful of ways is not

[hungerburg]

Actually, in the colloquial meaning, a shrubbery IS a type of garden. Just search youtube for "shrubbery monty pythons", and you can see. Too bad, that some time in the past, mappers did not use "barrier=hedgerow", because then "barrier=hedge" would be free now for polygons.

[jdhoek]

Here is another sample rendering from the PR in #4530. (It includes some patches of natural=scrub that should become natural=shrubbery, but I tend to leave existing entities as is if the replacement leads to a degraded map in OpenStreetMap's showcase rendering).

[RedAuburn]

I still don't understand your argument as to why this shouldn't be rendered. Honestly, the reason Carto is stagnating (no changes for 4 months so far!) is that valid requests like this are shot down by the maintainers. If a tag isn't rendered, the majority of mappers just won't use it. I understand that Carto doesn't want to influence tag preferences, but this is taken to an extreme which just prevents new tagging & rendering altogether.

[XandrexOSM]

Hello,

I have a different approach. If I look at the vegetation values for natural=*, specifically for those which can be used for a surface, all are mapped in openstreetmap-carto except :

• the ones which must not be used (fell and moor)
• one with less than 1000 occurences in OSM (tundra)
• shruberry

So a different approach could be to map all the values for the vegetation section in the wiki page https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:natural#Vegetation in a generic green, except those for which it has been decided to use an explicit different rendering.

After reading all the comments, I still do not understand what prevents the rendering of shruberry in openstreetmap-carto. I can understand that it is low priority, but refuse to render it is very different.

[patrickov]

I like to talk with examples. Let me ask @imagico about the following.

For the green space in the middle of the following view: https://www.google.com/maps/@22.3535023,114.1091815,3a,75y,290.27h,98.67t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1seI3hiQw306PLqPPOhbPqlQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DeI3hiQw306PLqPPOhbPqlQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D71.305534%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192

1. Is natural=shrubbery a correct tag to use?
2. If Q1's answer is yes, do you think that it's not significant enough to be rendered on the carto map?
3. If Q1's answer is no, what tag should I use?

Also, what about the green island in the middle of the following roundabout? https://www.google.com/maps/@22.3523008,114.1070948,3a,75y,4.96h,105.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s66Sh1K2tx7R5j4jBi6nvdQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Or the one in the middle of the following picture? https://www.google.com/maps/@22.3723633,114.1055946,3a,73.3y,254.46h,91.24t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sSHaC77PCZiaEmyCYnINTTg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DSHaC77PCZiaEmyCYnINTTg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D164.79945%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192

Mind you, all these are within 3 km of my home so I can easily find more examples.

[hungerburg]

The Hongkong streetviews and a recent blog post by imagico did ring a bell in my mind: I herewith propose, that OSM does not need "natural=shrubbery", but instead, it needs

"landuse=brush", c.f. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brush - and yes:

1) landuse, because these are planted vegetation, for THE USE of deterring entry to the land, either as a kind of barrier mapped as an area, AROUND the land, or simply the land itself 2) brush, because the word is in singular :)

I do not think, @patrickov wants to map the trees inside the roundabout as shrubbery, rather the ground cover on the road side…

[jeisenbe]

https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/?key=natural&value=shrubbery#map This tag is still not widely used, it is popular in a couple of countries in Europe

Note that we also do not render natural=fell or natural=tundra or natural=desert because those tags also do not have a clear definition for one type of vegetation.

In the case of natural=shrubbery it should be noted that there were many objections to this tag during the proposal process, which may still be valid, summarized here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/shrubbery and also in the original voting: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Proposed_features/shrubbery&oldid=2130624

There were also objections to using natural=scrub + maintained= instead: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Proposed_features/shrubbery&oldid=2188267

In this case there does not seem to be consensus by mappers if natural=shrubbery or natural=scrub or barrier=hedge as an area or some other tag is correct. We may need to wait for longer to see if a clear consensus develops before promoting a new tag.

[jdhoek]

In this case there does not seem to be consensus by mappers if natural=shrubbery or natural=scrub or barrier=hedge as an area or some other tag is correct. We may need to wait for longer to see if a clear consensus develops before promoting a new tag.

The proposal summary page summarizes the issue well enough: both votes had majority support, but not super-majority support. A significant percentage of mappers wants to use (or keep using) natural=scrub for the use proposed by natural=shrubbery, many driven by the fact that the former renders here. Those mappers are fully supported by Carto by default (the rendering was already there).

With natural=shrubbery, we are growing support organically, which given the results of the voting process — i.e., not outright dismissal, but a fundamental disagreement about which tagging to use (see the four positions outlined here) — is fair enough. At this point however, it would be fair to level the playing field by rendering natural=shrubbery. Carto shouldn't push new tags in the embryonic stage, but it shouldn't unreasonably resist tags gaining acceptance either.

The two major approaches (keep on using (or abusing depending on the point of view) natural=scrub, or use natural=shrubbery) don't clash in terms of rendering, and rendering does more good than harm (including offering mappers a solution for hedge areas, which were broken in Carto some years ago now).

[jdhoek]

This tag is still not widely used, it is popular in a couple of countries in Europe

To be fair: that distribution roughly corresponds with areas of the globe that are mapped in greater detail (due to the availability of mappers and mapping resources such as high resolution imagery and government-maintained background layers) where you would use natural=shrubbery. If you are mapping a remote village in Africa, changes are the shrubbery in the village square are not high on your list of priorities. natural=scrub is used globally, because it is used for quite large areas of natural scrub.

[hungerburg]

I think, jeisenbe did a good summary. The picture even shows the distribution more spread, than it actually is. More than half of the usage is in the Netherlands, https://taginfo.geofabrik.de/europe/netherlands/tags/natural=shrubbery and looking closer, there it is highly concentrated to small areas too.

My best wishes to the proponents of the tag, that they get the mapping community to produce a clear picture, of what on the ground feature the tag is to portray. For the time being, I do not see this issue worth kept open. When new data arrives, discussion can start afresh and not loaded with this here.

[pelderson]

https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/natural=shrubbery#chronology How much growth do we need to get areas of shrubbery, mapped as natural=shrubbery, rendered? Currently, I am trying to get rid of false village greens, many of which are in reality areas of shrubbery, mapped as village green to make them appear nice and green on the map, thus obscuring the true village greens.

[hungerburg]

Thats a staggering growth. The number of entities might already show in what direction users drift, so documentation can get adapted and made more precise?

[RedAuburn]

given that usage is now at 21k, maybe this should be reopened?

[fincentxyz]

I really don't understand why there isn't an established tag and rendering for urban greenery/shrubbery. Maybe I'm biased because I'm from the Netherlands and I see this sort of artificial vegetation every single day, but I'm sure this vegetation also exists a lot outside of my country...

Hopefully this issue can be reopened, the growth is undeniable...

[imagico]

A reminder to everyone: This issue tracker is for volunteer map designers to discuss map design work under the goals of this style. The challenges of this w.r.t. this specific request have been outlined above so please limit your commentary to things that might help addressing these issues, specifically design ideas that might do so, or pointers to changes in the de-facto meaning of the tag that might be significant.

I am going to try answering the question by @pelderson:

How much growth do we need to get areas of shrubbery, mapped as natural=shrubbery, rendered?

Areas of shrubbery (according to how Wikipedia/OED define this term) are rendered when mapped in the currently predominant ways of mapping them in OSM, that is differentiated according to either height of vegetation or function (as explained in detail above):

• leisure=garden - used for shrubbery (but also for other vegetation) planted and maintained systematically for decorative purposes.
• natural=heath - used generically for low height shrubbery independent of function.
• natural=scrub - used generically for tall shrubbery independent of function.
• barrier=hedge - used for shrubbery planted in a linear arrangement to serve as a barrier of some sort.
• landuse=forest - used sometimes (but not exclusively) for tall shrubs planted for wood production.

natural=shrubbery, which is used as an alternative way to map shrubbery by some mappers, undifferentiated by either height or function and not exclusively for shrubbery but essentially for any kind of urban and near urban vegetation in height less than mature trees, is currently not rendered.

If the use of this tag would increase to a comparable or higher level than the other tags mentioned that we render in the domain of mapping areas of shrubbery without a change in de facto meaning (which is very unlikely to happen, typically tags change in meaning if their use widens) that would face us with a very difficult decision:

• we would either need to continue explicitly not rendering a tag with wide use because it cannot be consistently integrated into our current paradigm of rendering vegetation or
• we would need to completely abandon our current paradigm of rendering vegetation differentiated by physical characteristics and function and flatten all vegetation rendering in height less than mature trees to one uniform design. That would of course be a sad day for anyone interested in differentiated rendering of vegetation.

Again - this is unlikely to happen because at least historically the world wide mapper community has often shown to be able to rectify gross inconsistencies in tagging paradigms like this once tags really get exposed to and scrutinized by the world wide community in all its diversity.

I am confident that this will happen also here. It could likely happen either by mappers re-defining and better differentiating and semantically delineating natural=shrubbery or by abandoning it in favor of other mapping ideas. I will continue to observe this and if and when some trend crystalizes here that we can positively support under our goals i would be more than happy to support anyone in developing a rendering solution for that in OSM-Carto.

[pelderson]

• leisure=garden - used for shrubbery (but also for other vegetation) planted and maintained systematically for decorative purposes.
• natural=heath - used generically for low height shrubbery independent of function.
• natural=scrub - used generically for tall shrubbery independent of function.
• barrier=hedge - used for shrubbery planted in a linear arrangement to serve as a barrier of some sort.
• landuse=forest - used sometimes (but not exclusively) for tall shrubs planted for wood production.

natural=shrubbery, which is used as an alternative way to map shrubbery by some mappers, undifferentiated by either height or function and not exclusively for shrubbery but essentially for any kind of urban and near urban vegetation in height less than mature trees, is currently not rendered.

leisure=garden and landuse=forest are not ways to tag areas of shrubbery. barrier=hedge is a linear feature, not a way to tag areas of shrubbery. So we are left with heath vs scrub. natural=heath is not for all low height shrubbery, it specifically tags areas of dwarf shrubs generally known as heath. natural=scrub is defined for osm as ".. to tag areas of uncultivated land covered with shrubs, bushes or stunted trees."

There is a gap. There are many areas of shrubbery not covered by these two: not dwarf shrubs and not uncultivated land. They are found in large quantities in urbanised areas, as are other types of greenery. Heath is practically never used for this. Some mappers think scrub should be extended to cultivated land and groomed shrubbery, but this is not generally adopted in practice, I think because it doesn't look green enough on the map. This is the gap filled by the tag natural=shrubbery. It's 'urban greenery' of the shrubbery type. Other urban greenery types are catered for by several grass tags and tree tags, even flowerbeds have a tag, but the ubiquitous shrubbery type is missing.

Massive tagging for the renderer has occurred, tagging these pieces of shrubbery as gardens, village greens, hedges, parks to make them appear green on the map, as mappers feel they should. At the same time the tag natural=shrubbery has been applied with a stunning and continuing growth in usage, despite not being rendered. Cultivated shrubbery is tagged almost exclusively to improve the map, to make it better represent the real world. Once natural=shrubbery is rendered, mappers can stop mapping for the renderer, for these patches of shrubbery. Mappers will of course differ about some areas, whether it's wild shrubbery or tamed scrub, but in general the difference is clear enough. Heath will not be confused with shrubbery. About the rendering: filling the area with the same green colour as hedge would be fitting and fine for a general purpose map, disregarding any density tags.

[jdhoek]

barrier=hedge is a linear feature, not a way to tag areas of shrubbery.

This of course is the standpoint of Carto as well. barrier=hedge combined with area=yes was deliberately removed from rendering, and solutions for tagging hedges mapped as areas requested. natural=shrubbery is one such solution, because a hedge is of course nothing more than cultivated shrubs, often planted densely (hence shrubbery:density=dense).

About the rendering: filling the area with the same green colour as hedge would be fitting and fine for a general purpose map, disregarding any density tags.

Pragmatic with no downsides.

[RedAuburn]

leisure=garden and landuse=forest are not ways to tag areas of shrubbery...

spot-on analysis, thank you 👍

[OttoROSM]

leisure=garden and landuse=forest are not ways to tag areas of shrubbery...

A Garden, wether residential or municipial and regardless of private or public access, typically is of a higher quality. Although when used residential; it might also mean the residents could have paved it over with tyles and just put a pot with a plant somewhere. When used municipial, the plants and design is of a higher quality. A grouping of some shrubs, with one or two trees, would still be maintained and kept orderly, but is not a garden; it is a shrubbery. And scrubs you can find on barrenland, it will grow organically and will not be kept tidy. Sometimes part of a forestry aream where there are open areas without trees.

A Forest of course is being missused often as wel to show that an area has multiple trees standing on it; but imho a patch of grass in an urban environment with 4 trees grouped together, does not qualify as a forest. It should be landuse=grass and I would individually put the trees in it. But for the sake of mapping simplicity, a small patch of land with multiple trees and a lot of undergrowth would be tagged as "forest"; as that is what comes closest to what is there. (or shrubbery with trees?)

Similarly a patch of grass with some trees, imho does not qualify as a park. A park is often a location to travel to where multiple patched of grass, shrubbery (scrub?), trees and often water features can be found.

[imagico]

Please keep the discussion on topic, what tags are supposed to be used in what way is not a suitable subject here. Further analysis of how the different tags discussed are de facto used in different parts of the world and to what extent that use is changing is welcome.

[OttoROSM]

Please keep the discussion on topic, what tags are supposed to be used in what way is not a suitable subject here. Further analysis of how the different tags discussed are de facto used in different parts of the world and to what extent that use is changing is welcome.

Well that's not entirely fair; since you yourself mentioned "this tagging competes with barrier=hedge (on linear ways), natural=scrub and natural=heath and to some extent also leisure=garden. I think it needs to establish its meaning and use relative to these tags with some clarity and acceptance among mappers before we can consider supporting it here."

So I agree that the discussion around which tag should be used for what purpose; should be done on the OSM Fora or OSM Wiki and not necesarily here; but from the above and further discussion onwards, it was pulled into the matter wheter it should be rendered or not.

And IMHO to what extent things are being rendered is quire important when you create maps. Especially since carto is the default renderer for OSM. And it also drives people to use tags accordingly. As shrubbery does not show up, people tend to use village green, garden, scrub, hedge+area and so forth quite inconsitently; where shrubbery would solve this.

Carto's choice is now to not render this tag at al; making for some quite odd maps when used and a mixed bag of other tags when people "map with the renderer in mind". In so far you want to create a seperate graphic representation for Shurbbery and what that would look like, I'll leave up to designers; but to not have it rendered at all seems odd.

[hungerburg]

In the area of my local knowledge, we have lots of scrub, in the sense of uncultivated dwarf woods. Curiously, the tag is not used to map hedges or manicured urban green. Perhaps, nobody realized yet, that this is actually the same, because it renders the same in OSM-Carto, i.e. some shade of green? Perhaps people consider this something different and rather map nothing unless there is a way to map correctly, i.e. with a different pattern in Carto? Perhaps people are fine with hedges as linear features, there are some mappings? Perhaps because people are plain lazy? Perhaps, because we do not have a background map from which to copy colours? Who knows?

All the while, I do not see shrubbery mapping taking off here (Austria). Certainly not because the definition is too tight, I find it actually quite broad.

EDIT to ADD: There are six shrubberies in all of western Austria, five of them by me. There is a suspicious cluster in Upper Austria - looking there, it is used to map reforestation, eg. https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1169666435 - the note says: "Lt. OSM: Eine Fläche mit Sträuchern, die von Menschen aktiv gepflegt wird. = aufgeforstete Fläche" - in English - "Acc. to OSM: An area with shrubs that gets actively maintained by humans. = reforestation" - Is that within spec? PS: The aerial resolution in Austria is 15cm in select areas rsp. 29cm all over at least.

[jdhoek]

Perhaps people are fine with hedges as linear features, there are some mappings? Perhaps because people are plain lazy? Perhaps, because we do not have a background map from which to copy colours?

In the Netherlands we do have access to such background maps under permissive licences, in combination with 8cm satellite imagery. (We are fortunate frontrunners in that area.) Combine that with the habit of using bushes and hedges as part of the design of streets and roads safe for bicycles, and you have an area where mapping shrubbery as areas makes a lot of sense (after all, the grassy areas and parking bays which together with the actual road and the shrubberies makes up most of the public street areas are mapped as areas as well). Linear hedges here are used mostly on private ground where such data is lacking or simply not interesting/relevant.

Carto's choice is now to not render this tag at al; making for some quite odd maps when used and a mixed bag of other tags when people "map with the renderer in mind". In so far you want to create a seperate graphic representation for Shurbbery and what that would look like, I'll leave up to designers; but to not have it rendered at all seems odd.

It's silly. Even just rendering it the same as natural=scrub would improve the user experience without any downsides.

[OttoROSM]

@hungerburg for the example you give; it would actually depends on the kind usage on the ground. I could easily see this as shrubbery if indeed this is 'kept tidy' by humans; but it could also easily be scrub or part of re-forestation, and then I would tag it as such. (scrub/forest)

However if you look at Liebenstein, accross the street there is a patch accross the street of "Mühlbachler Installations- und Gebäudetechnik" that could be part of the garden of the house that is there, but could also be just a collection of shrubs planted by the village that would be mapped as Shrubbery. In that sense Shrubbery is to Shurbs as Forest is to Trees.

But have a look at 13 Böhmerwald Str. Freistadt, in front of the McDonalds; that would qualify a Shrubbery. Or across the street is a bit in between municipal garden or shrubbery. Then a little bit north in front of the bank (Promenade 11, 4240 Freistadt, Austria) is typical what would be Shrubbery.

[imagico]

There are six shrubberies in all of western Austria, five of them by me. There is a suspicious cluster in Upper Austria - looking there, it is used to map reforestation, eg. https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1169666435 - the note says: "Lt. OSM: Eine Fläche mit Sträuchern, die von Menschen aktiv gepflegt wird. = aufgeforstete Fläche" - in English - "Acc. to OSM: An area with shrubs that gets actively maintained by humans. = reforestation"

This matches my observation for most of the world outside the Netherlands (reminder: Netherlands accounts for more than half of the uses of the tag at the moment). There are local concentrations mostly based on the work of individual mappers mapping either something locally specific (like the reforeststion areas you mention) or any and all urban or near urban greenery with that tag, probably often through armchair mapping where distinction between the other more commonly used tags is difficult.

Good demonstrator of such practice in a semi-urban context is the area around Backnang in Germany where a single mapper broadly mapped various streetside greenery (ranging from regularly mown grass via dwarf shrubs and larger bushes to full grown trees) with natural=shrubbery. Like here:

https://mc.bbbike.org/mc/?lon=9.447153&lat=48.932972&zoom=17&num=2&mt0=bing-satellite&mt1=mapnik

This is not representative for use of the tag overall, most uses are in a more densely builtup and intensely maintained mid-urban or wealthy area context. But is quite typical for the semi-urban/near-urban context. This is a perfectly legitimate mapping paradigm in principle of course but it clashes both with consensus mapping practice in OSM in general and with the paradigm we use in OSM-Carto for differentiated rendering of vegetation (as discussed above in https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4473#issuecomment-1562652468)

There are other applications in use of the tag not yet mentioned, in particular:

• polygon mapping of individual shrubs (otherwise predominantly mapped with nodes tagged natural=shrub)
• instead of man_made=planter, sometimes in combination with barrier=wall/barrier=retaining_wall

[OttoROSM]

But is that a reason to not render it at all??

[OttoROSM]

As an example in the Netherlands, this is an area between blocks of building. It is not a park, nor a garden, it is however maintained by the municipality. These are not scrubs, they are a collection of shrubs; with a two trees in it.

On the other side of the street , you can see the fence of the residential gardens and some municipal green (i.e. shrubbery) When you get into the sidestreet, there is some parking spaces where the back is a municipal hedge and in between there is shrubbery. On the other side there is a municpal garden.

And this is common for the layout of villages and cities throughout the Netherlands. This is area few years back was mapped where this all was tagged as garden. Which is not correct; it is not a garden. Some people would tag it as Village Green, but apparently that is a very specific UK thing to tagged and is rendered.

So can we at least get this rendered as something green; in stead of not getting it rendered at all. I am sorry if in the rest of the world the imagery, Mappillary footage, additional layers or public/urban infrastructure is worse than in the Netherlands, but that should hardly be a reason to not show something :-)

(and I travel quite a lot and know that urban infrastructure is easily as beautiful in Germany and other countries. Maybe not the imagery and layers to support the mapping accuracy.)

[imagico]

We render tags if and when (a) there is consensus among the maintainers that doing so is in support of our goals and (b) there is a PR suggesting a rendering for it that is suitable under these goals. Neither of these is the case here. Arguments for that assessment are provided in previous discussion (here and in #4530). As mentioned already in https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4473#issuecomment-1562652468 we will be watching the development of use of the tag and we welcome further analysis of tag use as input (like @hungerburg did in https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4473#issuecomment-1627863712).

Slightly off-topic advice: If the Netherlands mapping community considers themselves avant-garde w.r.t. mapping of vegetation or mapping in general it might be a good idea to develop your own map style reflecting that. Many local communities have their own map style projects and diversity in available map styles is in general highly beneficial for OSM. Our aim is to serve the potential global map user and to support consensus among mappers globally - and that naturally limits our ability to adjust to local trends that are - subjectively or objectively - ahead of the rest of the world.

[OttoROSM]

Thanks for the advice; but as your goals state: Carto is "a major part of the public face of OpenStreetMap for many people the map on osm.org rendered with this style is OpenStreetMap."

The goal here is not to invent yet another style, but to show on osm.org what is there in real life and being mapped.

Again, wether shrubbery requires it's own specific rendering as compared to scrub or not I leave to debate. But I do believe your goals support at least it being rendered at least similar to scrub or a shrub. And for the case where larger areas of i.e. hedges the barier=hedge tag really is not 'esthetically pleasing'

Showing where these green patches are

• Legibility and Clarity makes the map more 'intuitively readable' and 'esthetically pleasing'
• Being understandable and supportive 'serve as feedback for mappers and ecourage correct mapping' - the latter you could debate to what these patches really are; but certainly they are not scrubs, nor village green and garden is also not really what they are. But I guess this is something you could call 'of opinion' and this discussion should be part of the OSM discussion, rather than on the renderer.
• Diversity 'should represent the diversity of the OSM community and geography in general' we are not aiming to implement a specific tag rendering for something that only exists in the Netherlands. This type of green can be found all over the globe in urban environments. (and the tag is used also in other parts of the world). With that in mind , you could argue that the rendering of Village Green is kind of against this goal; as it is a very specific English tag (derived from English law), that has very limited match to what it means elsewhere and is often (mis)used in other countries to siginfy festival grounds or the main square in a village; and does not even have to include actual green.
• A rich map 'deliberately creating a fairly rich map showing a significant number of different features' and 'gives a broad recognition to the mappers' work' as well as 'not to show all or even most of the OSM data.' Shrubbery is a differentiation of green in urban environments, to differentiate between higher quality gardens and simpler shurbbery. But it does signify quite a large amount of area's on the map.

The aspects of Maintainability and Adaptability/EoU I can't comment on. I can imagine that different rendering for Shrubbery density would be not support the goals; but to render it for now the same as scrub (in the same fashion grass and village green have the same rendering) or one specific rendering for shrubbery; I can't imagine would go against these goals.