This study showed that urban gardens can provide ecosystem service bundles, with urban residential gardens providing more ecosystem service bundles than allotments. Also, more ecosystem service bundles were provided by rural and peri-urban gardens. These gardens had bigger sizes and had less replacement of their natural land cover with urban materials. Furthermore, residential gardens had higher nutrient balances than allotment gardens. This excess nutrient can result in nutrient loss, which could pose a tradeoff for water quality. Therefore, there is a need for efficient and sustainable use of nutrients in gardens to facilitate their recycling.
Apart from garden size, another factor that could have affected the provision of ESS by urban gardens is their management intensity. Though the management intensity of urban gardens did not negatively impact plant diversity and trees, however, other studies have shown that management intensity could have a notable impact on plant species and nutrient cycling. The results from my study might be due to the unequal distribution of the gardens, as the high-intensity managed gardens were more than medium-intensity and overgrown gardens.
The findings from my study further confirmed the interaction among ecosystem service bundles which was an already established theory. The interactions among ecosystem service bundles studied for both periods were mainly synergies. Synergies between provisioning and regulating services are crucial for ensuring the sustainability of provisioning services. Overall, there were no statistically significant tradeoffs for both periods, although some research has shown significant tradeoffs between cultural and provisioning services.
The difference in the use of gardens for cultural services for both periods on a Likert scale of 5 buttresses their significance not only during ordinary times but also during the crisis period. During the Covid crisis, gardens were valued more for their cultural services, as they helped alleviate feelings such as depression, worry, fear, loneliness, sleepiness, and poor appetite experienced by garden owners.
In conclusion, urban gardens contribute significantly to human life; however, attitudes toward them are not the same. This management intensity can give urban gardens heterogeneous structures, which help to provide a wider range of ecosystem service bundles. Also, recognition of the interdependent nature of ESS can help gardens to be intentional about their gardening practices. This will help to promote more synergies and avoid tradeoffs among ESS.