Trees are a critical component of urban green infrastructure that provides multiple ecosystem services and human health benefits. There is a recent interest in urban agriculture amongst residents, city administrators, researchers, and an array of social and environmental benefits were argued for the practice. Several studies have explored these social and environmental services urban trees might offer. Although fruit trees from urban home gardens can offer potential health benefits while offering other social and environmental benefits, this aspect of urban forestry is less explored, particularly in the tropics.

In order to understand the species preference of urban gardeners for their home gardens, we quantified the structure and diversity of urban home gardens following a systematic household survey in Sylhet, a small sub-tropical city in Bangladesh. A total of 499 holdings were surveyed for floristic composition from 27 wards from within Sylhet City Corporation. Urban tree demography data were collected using a field guide following standard procedure for the total number of trees, herbs, and shrubs, tree diameter at breast height, height, and the purpose of planting a particular species as responded by the household. In addition, data were analyzed for the quantitative structure of the different stand characteristics such as abundance and species diversity, relative density, frequency, dominance, and importance value.

Our survey revealed that a total of 4839 individual trees from 86 species were present in the study area. About 4% of the surveyed urban households had no trees in their home gardens. Home gardens in the Sylhet City Corporation were dominated by trees (54 species) followed by shrubs and herbs, where most tree species were native fruit species. While the relative density of tree species in urban home gardens was 41.67%, the relative density of fruit trees was 22.95% among them. However, the relative density of shrubs and herbs was found to be 49.62% and 9.21%, respectively, and most of them were flowering plants planted for aesthetic purposes. Dominant fruit tree species identified in urban home gardens were Mangifera indica, Artocarpus chaplasha, Cocos nucifera, Citrus aurantium, Averrhoa carambola, Bixa orellana and Citrus limon, which are rich in minerals and vitamins, and are critical for community nutrition, particularly for a developing country with a greater proportion of children and young adults. Our findings suggest that while the city corporation and other related government authorities generally prefer aesthetic plant species for urban forestry, people living in urban areas still prefer fruit tree species in their homestead urban forests. This case study can facilitate informed urban forestry practices, particularly in the tropics, where domestic fruit consumption primarily depends on local sources. Furthermore, these findings would interest researchers working in the relationship between urban planning and socio-environmental sustainability in developing countries.

Keywords: urban garden, fruit trees, public health.