The NDNs builders did similar.
Our late neighbours were called John and Marion, and when Marion passed away, John planted a maid Marion rose and he gave that rose bush so much attention, it had the most beautiful long lasting blooms and smelled really fragrant.
One day I looked out of the window to see what the racket was and new NDN had the garden completely ripped out. I ran outside in my nighty and asked where the rose bush was because I really wanted to save it but it was already at the bottom of the skip with about 8 tonnes of dirt on top of it.
He had such a lovely garden and we had alsorts of wildlife visit because of him. He had a pond so we used to get visited by some sort of crane(? Not a bird person so not entirely sure, big bird, long legs, long pointy beak).
Now NDNs garden is all concrete slabs. Not a blade of grass in sight.
Other NDN does have a nice garden, but he's the bamboo culprit. He also keeps fancy pigeons and whilst they're beautiful to look at, they're not wildlife. The only wildlife he seems to bring in is hungry rats after his bird feed.
I can't blame new NDN entirely, on the field opposite us, a few miles down there's a huge fishing pond but over the decades between us and the pond there's been an industrial park thrown up, and a huge glass recycling facility that absolutely stinks and just draws in loads of gulls for the waste.
We also see a lot of bats in the summer but next door but one have put loads of those owl shaped, ultra sonic cat scares in their garden that go off when the wind blows. It's at a frequency that they can't hear but DS and I can still hear it, and since then there's been a marked reduction in the levels of bat activity too which is a shame because there was no greater tiny pleasure than sitting outside on a warm summer dusk and seeing the bats flitter around.