should I have to do my neighbours garden

She has the right, in law, to chop down anything that overhangs into her garden, but she must hand you back all the clippings {grin}

Luckily my neighbours are good about things like that, and if a tree is casting too much shadow they tell us politely and we do something about it.

Weeds coming in from a neighbour's garden can be a nuisance. We have an empty house next door and all the weeds grow through the fence. I don't like to use weed killer as we have dogs so I just have to pull them up, have enough of my own weeds to deal with. I wonder if my OH would go round with the strimmer and clear a strip by the fence?

The problem with gardens is that we all have our own 'take' on what is beautiful and what is not.

My garden is an expression of myself. It's a bit wild with lots of colour and the plants are allowed to wander a bit and I enjoy the company of some weeds (but not others) and I encourage bees and butterflies and anything else who may like to venture in.

My neighbour's garden is the opposite. He cuts his hedges using a spirit level to make sure they are all even. He has flowerbeds with no flowers in. What an alien concept !
I am conscious that my trees shed leaves over onto theirs and one year he offered to help me cut the trees back. Well he nearly killed them, and I suspect that was the plan. He will never get in here again !

Your plants will grow back never fear !

My mother's neighbour had a very productive apricot tree in her south facing garden. Every year a heavily laden branch would gradually lower itself over the fence and I'd be hovering!!

Mindful of the 'handing back the forbidden fruit' rule I would wait until she'd gone to work before filling a bucket.

The year Mum went into care we were clearing out the garden shed and the neighbour came round with a huge bag of apricots as a parting gift!

If the material she cleared was on your side of the fence your neighbour had absolutely no right to remove it. Nor do you have to plant your garden to meet her requirements. If she doesn't like trees then she can keep her garden tree free but she cannot expect you to do the same.

We have a neigbour with a large untended garden. It is annoying especially as he lets the ivy grow all over the fence his side. It gets between the slats in the panels splitting them apart and the fence bends under the weight of it. Unfortunately we are responible for the fence. We have asked him politely several times to keep the fence panels ivy free, but without effect. They are very nice people, but this side of them exasperates me, but I have learned to live with it because there is no alternative.

Noonie1 I am a great believer in leaving some organic material round the edges for birds to feed in over the winter. We once had a neighbour who picked up every single leaf, we must have been a nightmare for him as our leaves were always blowing in to his garden.

My neighbour hates it when petals from my 'blowsy' rose bush land on his lawn...
A lady I know won't have a tree/bush in her garden in case it gets overgrown, she trims them within an inch of their lives and can't see the beauty in an untidy garden.

am I not normal in loving greenery, trees, leaves flowers etc and to want them to be as normal as possible. I want my garden to be a tiny bit of countryside where I can relax or look out on a semi wild bit of earth. How can anyone like a cropped lawn, weedless, no trees, just a few roses sticking up with bare earth in between. Did anyone see Gardeners World last week where Monty showed us the cow parsley (weeds) and said how much he liked it and let it grow. Good for him, by the way the same neighbour, a few years ago had a garden full of waist high weeds, dog poo that was never cleanded up and her son said he liked my trees as they hid her mess. How things have changed.

ethel you are entirely normal. It is your neighbour who is the odd one out.

What you do in your garden is nobodies business but yours. If your neighbour doesn't like it, complain to her that her bare patch doesn't give wildlife a chance and is not at all attractive to see from your garden. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!!

Your garden should be kept within your own boundary. Just snip anything off that creeps over. What you like is fine, but please do not impose your idea on others. Boundaries are there for a reason!

I would add that I am doing the bee in the garden thing for the BBC. My garden is buzzing, but it is a proper garden.

I would certainly get rid of some of the really problem weeds which can take over a garden and creep onto someone else's property. Even my sneakily killing them from my side.

Tell her to s*d off. It's your garden and you can have it anyway you choose. She is entitled to chop off the bits that overhang her garden but she has to give them back to you. If she's chopped buddlia stick bits of it into the ground. Some will take and you'll have even more lovely butterfly attractors.

One man's plant is another man's weed. A rose would be a weed in a field of wheat. Tell her she can keep her garden the way she likes it and you will keep your's the way you like it.

Don't be bullied.

greenockgran what is the bee thing you mentioned. I would love to so something like that, Ive got baby frogs almost ready to go back to the wild and have bee hotels etc. I feed the birds etc

ethel your garden sounds lovely.

Sounds like your neighbour has too much time on their hands I agree anything overhanging can be chopped but at the end of the day it's your garden and therefore expresses your ideas of how a garden should look.

Do anything rather than quarrel with your neighbour. The effects of this would be far worse than losing some overhangng branches!

My garden is overgrown as it is due for a completely new layout.Clearing is a big job and the abundance of rain does,t help,but I always make sure to clear the edges near to the neighbours.
I also asked another if anything was growing into hers which she wasn,t happy with,resulting in me pruning a small tree and cutting back my ivy.
At my last house I had a neat garden,but weeds always growing through from the neighbours.
I dug a trench down the whole length and lined it with old slate roof tiles then replacesd the soil.
The slates were proud by a few inches which sealed the gap below my fence and kept it weed free.

Greenockgran - what is a proper garden?

Is she bigger than you.

The buddlea will grow back, after all you are supposed to prune them to 18" every spring. Why not just make sure nothing strays over the border and keep that strip well weeded. When we had a similar creeping border I used to weedkiller about 6" along the actual fence. What was on my side of the 6" stayed - it was mine! Definitely don't kill all the plants in the whole bed, just make sure that it is weedfree.

One of the neighbours issues is probably that not only the trees overhang her garden but also that your weeds/wild flowers seed themselves in her patch. If you don't have a lot of time to garden why don't you set up some kind of garden share arrangement with your neighbour

Try to stay on good terms for your own sake . My neighbour of 30 years (now dead) fell out with my X and spitefully grew his privit hedge to about 12ft which blocked most of the sun from our garden . As soon as I divorced I made an effort to build bridges with all the people on the Avenue who he had run ins with ! I have a much more peaceful life and we all get on , I even looked after (hedge) neighbours wife before she went into a nursing home .

My Brother's neighbour can't wait for his garden to grow a bit wild and trespass close to the fence or in her garden. Every day she watches, checks and sharpens her pruners. He is very busy at work and sometimes doesn't notice till his neighbour knocks on the door. He's greeted with a big smile and either a rhubarb crumble or an apple pie. He loves his neighbour nicking from his garden as he says everything she takes comes back with a pie crust on.