Flower gardens can create valuable habitat for urban pollinators, but little is known about the existing spatial pattern of gardens on the landscape, or factors associated with the decision to plant a flower garden. We mapped the distribution of front yard flower gardens compared to four other front yard landscaping types (lawn, shrubs, non-vegetated, and weeds) across 86,429 addresses in Greater Boston, MA, USA using Google Street View. We complemented these data with on-the-ground surveys at a stratified random subset of 519 yards. We hypothesized that census tracts with higher incomes would have higher flower garden frequencies and that these gardens would have higher species richness, and that census tracts with larger lots would also have higher flower garden frequencies and species richness. Yards identified as flower gardens using Google Street View contained around double the cultivated floral species richness of lawns and more than any other yard type. However, flower gardens were infrequent in front yards, and were a substantial front yard cover type in only 2.3 % of yards. Flower garden frequency and cultivated species richness were greater with higher census tract income, both consistent with the luxury effect hypothesis. However, higher-income lots also had more lawns and fewer spontaneous (weedy) species. Surprisingly, flower gardens had higher frequencies in census tracts with smaller lots. In our region, flower gardening appears to be constrained by income or education but not lot size, pointing to the potential role of small urban lots as a target for pollinator habitat.

中文翻译：

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传粉媒介园艺受制于城市前院的收入，但不受地块大小的制约


花园可以为城市传粉者创造宝贵的栖息地，但人们对景观上花园的现有空间模式或与种植花园决定相关的因素知之甚少。我们使用 Google 街景绘制了美国马萨诸塞州士顿地区 86,429 个地址的前院花园分布与其他四种前院景观类型（草坪、灌木、无植被和杂草）的分布。我们通过在 519 码的分层随机子集进行实地调查来补充这些数据。我们假设收入较高的人口普查区将具有更高的花园频率，并且这些花园将具有更高的物种丰富度，而地块较大的人口普查区也将具有更高的花园频率和物种丰富度。使用 Google 街景确定为花园的院子包含的花卉种类大约是草坪的两倍，比任何其他院子类型都多。然而，花园在前院并不常见，并且仅在 2.3% 的院子中是一种大量的前院覆盖类型。随着人口普查区收入的增加，花园频率和栽培物种丰富度更高，两者都与奢侈品效应假说一致。然而，高收入地块也有更多的草坪和更少的自发（杂草）物种。令人惊讶的是，花园在地块较小的人口普查区中出现的频率更高。在我们地区，花卉园艺似乎受到收入或教育的限制，但不受地块大小的限制，这表明小城市地块作为传粉媒介栖息地的目标具有潜在作用。