Sandy land has poor soil and low productivity. Artificial vegetation restoration is an important measure for improving soil fertility and quality. Xanthoceras sorbifolium and Cerasus humilis are excellent drought-resistantly ecological tree species in Northwest, China. The effects of Xanthoceras sorbifolium and Cerasus humilis plantation, which were artificially cultivated in March 2017, had been evaluated in the sandy land of Yinchuan Plain, Ningxia, China, the neighboring long-term abandoned land as the contrast. Twenty soil physical, chemical and biological indicators were measured as the soil quality evaluation indicators of the total data set (TDS) in July to August 2020. Nine indicators were selected as soil quality evaluation indicators of significant data set (SDS) by variance difference significance analysis (ANOVA). The minimum data set (MDS) was constructed by principal component analysis (PCA) and the Norm value. Soil quality index (SQI) was calculated using linear (L) and non-linear (NL) scoring methods. The research results showed that the soil physical, chemical and biological properties of the Xanthoceras sorbifolium and Cerasus humilis plantation in the sandy soil restoration area of Yinchuan Plain were improved, comparing with the long-term abandoned land. The percentage of soil sand percentage (Sand) decreased, but the percentage of soil silt (Silt) and clay (Clay) increased, the pH decreased. The main soil nutrient indicators such as soil organic matter (TOC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP) and total potassium (TK) were improved, and the activities of major biological enzymes such as sucrase (SA), urease (UA) cellulase (CEA) and alkaline phosphatase (PPA) were also higher than CK. The MDS indicators for soil quality evaluation in the study area were Silt and total phosphorus (TP). Under the two evaluation methods, the soil quality indexes (SQIs) of the plantation of Xanthoceras sorbifolium and Cerasus humilis restored forest land were higher than the abandoned land, but the increase was not significant (P>0.05), and the soil quality index (SQI) of the Cerasus humilis forestland planted for 4a was higher than Xanthoceras sorbifolium forestland planted for 4 a (P>0.05). Compared with abandoned land, Xanthoceras sorbifolium and Cerasus humilis plantation can be cultivated and used as ecological restoration shrubs for soil improvement in this research area.There was significant (P<0.05) or extremely significant (P<0.01) correlation between the SQI calculated based on different data sets, the correlation coefficient between SQI-NLM and SQI-NLS was the largest. The nonlinear soil quality evaluation method based on MDS has better applicability in the study area and can represent the characteristics of soil quality more accurately. The soil quality evaluation method can be used as a reference for evaluating of sandy soil use quality in Yinchuan Plain, and for providing the reference of cultivation and management of Xanthoceras sorbifolium and Cerasus humilis plantation and the restoration of artificial vegetation in this area.