<p>Urban green spaces (UGS) can be in diverse forms and provide important ecosystem services. City parks and community gardens have attracted a lot of attention while urban orchards are comparatively understudied, despite their ability to serve as a potential multipurpose landscape to promote environmental health in cities. In this study, we compared understory plant diversity and soil health in 9 sites representing three types of urban green spaces (community gardens, parks, urban orchards) in Louisville, KY, USA. During the 2021 and 2022 growing seasons, we carried out monthly surveys of understory plant diversity. In 2023, we collected soil samples to assess arbuscular mycorrhizal activity, microbial functional diversity, earthworm communities, soil physical traits, heavy metals contamination, and soil nutrient content. Urban orchards and community gardens had higher total and native understory plant species richness than parks. Urban orchards also had enhanced physical and biotic soil properties compared to gardens and parks. We did not detect any significant differences in nutrient availability between UGS types but found that heavy metals were significantly higher in garden soils compared to parks and orchards, while orchard soils showed enhanced water-holding capacity and earthworm abundance compared to parks. Urban orchards make up only a small fraction of urban green spaces in the US, but our results suggest that they have a great potential to support high plant diversity while improving soil health in urban settings.</p>