Objective “Habitat garden” is an urban green space that integrates “habitat” and “garden”, and is a garden with habitat function, and auxiliary functions such as landscape beautification, leisure and recreation, communication and interaction, public education, health and healing, or improvement of living environment. It is a practical carrier to achieve the core goal of a garden city featuring “harmonious coexistence between man and nature”, and it is also an innovative model for urban biodiversity conservation. Clarifying the scientific construction approaches is key to promote the large-scale and standardized construction of habitat gardens in garden cities.

Methods Based on an in-depth examination of the definition and status of habitat gardens within the context of garden city construction, this research discusses in combination with practice, the feasible approach for habitat garden construction.

Results The habitat garden construction approaches consist of the following 4 steps. Firstly, select a habitat garden site in combination with multi-scale site analysis, while investigating local and surrounding biotic and abiotic environments. Secondly, evaluate environmental potential and further identify the target species to be restored. Thirdly, implement the project of habitat restoration and landscape creation according to the habitat characteristics and local function positioning of those target species. Finally, carry out ecological monitoring and nature-based habitat management in the project. As for the site selection for habitat garden, a multi-scale feasibility analysis should be conducted first, involving the ecological analysis of landscape connectivity index and ecological sources, and the feasibility analysis of land management. Then a site investigation should be conducted, including the investigation of nonbiological environment aiming to reveal the habitat characteristics of the selected site and clarify prominent environmental issues of the site, accompanied by a species, population, or community investigation for existing and former plants, insects, birds, small mammals, amphibians and reptile, soil and surface arthropods, soil microorganisms, and other biological groups within and around the site in an effort to understand the current and potential distribution levels of biodiversity in the site. The evaluation of environmental potential encompasses four key analytical components: biological distribution potential analysis for evaluating local spatial distribution and local habitat suitability of dominant species, populations, and ecological communities; interspecific interaction potential analysis for examining trophic relationships, competitive interactions, and symbiotic associations among organisms; community succession potential analysis for investigating ecosystem succession trajectories, developmental rates, and potential equilibrium states; migration potential analysis for assessing dispersal capabilities and movement patterns of flora and fauna. The project entails habitat restoration and landscape recreation for target species and populations comprising two integral components: One is that habitat construction strategy should be based on habitat and feeding preferences of the target species and populations, and optimize conditions to support organisms’ survival, reproduction, and adaptive capacity against stressors by replenishing native vegetation and food resources, creating sheltered microhabitats with optimal perching conditions, and restoring natural refuges; the other is to set up artificial overwintering sites for natural enemies within the site. The nature-based habitat management encompasses two key aspects: One is to emphasize the “self sustain” of the ecosystem by minimizing artificial interference, such as night protection, noise isolation, and volunteer plant protection, and the other is to provide necessary artificial regulation that conforms to nature, such as the removal or cutting of malignant weeds. The ecological monitoring is to realize the sustainable development and dynamic regulation of habitat gardens. The monitoring results show that the richness and abundance of natural enemies (including natural enemy insects, aphidophagus natural enemies, and aphidophagus ladybugs) in a habitat garden after one year of construction of the garden, along with the abundance of lacewings, are significantly higher than in ordinary green spaces. Conversely, the average pest density per branch in ordinary green spaces is 3.91 times higher than in the habitat garden. The construction of habitat gardens has achieved the goals of restoring local food chains and repairing nutrient relationships, while significantly advancing sustainable pest control and biodiversity enhancement. The vegetation richness has increased from over 30 to over 130, as well as the diversity of birds. Mammals such as the Northeast Hedgehog (Erinaceus amurensis) and Weasel (Mustela sibirica) have also built burrows here as habitat.

Conclusion This research proposes that the fundamental prerequisite for the construction of habitat gardens is the joint participation of multiple fields throughout the entire process, the key link for the construction of habitat gardens is the evaluation of environmental potential, and the basic guarantees for the sustainable development of habitat garden are ecological monitoring and habitat management in alignment with nature.