ABSTRACT
Residential areas in the largest Finnish cities are largely comprised of apartment blocks, along with low-rise housing areas with detached and semi-detached houses. At present, there are over 68,000 detached and semidetached houses with associated gardens and yards in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (see Table 5.1). Private gardens can have multiple roles in urban areas as they are special and valuable environments for people and wildlife.2 They are unique and heterogeneous environments, where the management choices of individual gardeners are important, particularly when considering the possibilities of these habitats to maintain and enhance urban biodiversity and to provide ecosystem services for urban inhabitants.3
