It is always great to look back at a completed project and see how the landscape has developed over time, but even better when wildlife starts to make it home too.

It was very exciting to learn last week that one of our private garden designs in County Durham, completed in 2019, is now home to a family of Barn Owls (Tyto alba), including several young chicks.

This brownfield site has matured into an established landscape in a very short period of time, with a mix of native trees, shrubs and hedgerows, combined with ornamental planted borders and seasonally managed grass and wildflower meadows. The garden and wider paddock landscape create a welcoming environment for a wide range of flora and fauna, and integrate the private land with the wider landscape and open countryside.

Beyond the formal garden, areas of rough grassland, wetlands/ponds, mature vegetation, wildflower meadows and field margins provide valuable habitat for small mammals such as voles and mice, which are an important food source for Barn Owls. The planting and natural landscape features also provide shelter and opportunities for a wider range of birds, insects and other wildlife.

Receiving the update that these Barn Owls are successfully breeding in and around the site, is extremely rewarding, and a reminder that completion of a project is just the beginning for a new landscape. The spaces and places we create continue to grow, change and become more valuable over time, for both people and nature.

“Southern Green developed a scheme that responded to our aims, and within just a few years we began to see the benefits. What we hadn’t fully anticipated was the extraordinary increase in wildlife and biodiversity that followed, including Barn Owls, buzzards, smaller birds, ducks, moorhens, rabbits, hares, deer and hedgehogs. With Southern Green’s expertise, the landscape has become a genuine nature oasis — far beyond what we originally imagined, and something we will always cherish.”