should I have to do my neighbours garden

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My bee/butterfly friendly garden. My neighbour's garden is the opposite. We share a gardener. She tries to influence him re our garden. Luckily he takes no notice.

Your garden - your choice - we do have a major problem with a revolting plant (don't even know what it's called), which the Council planted in every odd corner of the estate and which we've tried everything to remove - it's woody, so pops up all over the lawn, ex-neighbours used petrol to remove, but even the strongest weed-killer doesn't work and cutting back doesn't get rid of it! So you may hate some problem plants as much as your neighbours do. Tough! Our problem is that we would dearly love to be able to garden, but my whole family have disbility issues and can't get the garden started off (can't afford to pay a gardener to do an initial dig over/clear-up)

There is no legal requirement to have a fence, only markers to show the boundary. I suggest Leemw711 that you tie washing line to the posts that are there and display a variety of old underwear, towels with holes in them and old dog blankets!

Of course this might make things worse!

leemw711 Provided it's not too long a fence can you not put a four foot post and wire netting fence up on your side? Then grow climbers up it? Something rampant like mile a minute vine. Reclaim yards sometimes have posts at a reasonable price.

I am so lucky with my neighbours in every house I've lived in - some were keen gardeners others not so. Budldleia is a problem due to it's natural habit, in one house ours grew against a back (we were corner house with neighbour at right angle to ours) & grew over their fence, they never complained & we would always ask if we could go round to trim it in the autummn - no problem.

I live in a Park Home & everyone looks after their gardens, I do my best to ensure nothing grows over my fences where possible & am constantly pulling up ivy & convulvulus to stop them spreading. When I bought this house (after DH died) the garden was very overgrown as an elderly gentleman lived here, he had a beautiful garden until his health prevented him looking after it.

My garden is a work in progress & I hope one day it will look exactly how I want it. I did inherit some lovely roses & hardy fuschias. Still in the process of cutting back some shrubs but that will have to wait until the Autumn.

I do think we are all entitled to have our garden as we want it but should be mindful of our neighbours & hope that they are respectful to me.

It saddens me where there are disputes & hateful behaviour going on. Maybe I've just been lucky or I'm very tolerant

Guess which is me?

leemw711. I feel for you, it is horrible not to be on good terms with the neighbours.

Is it possible the son has problems, and that his parents would be friendly if you spoke to them?

You can do what you like on your side of the boundary - if money were no object you could put up your own fence, within your boundary, but assuming that is not the case, plant fast growing shrubs well inside it so that the neighbours have no excuse to cut bits off that go their side. Or you could creat a barrier for your grand daghter putting stuff - anything - along the boundary line and telling her she must not cross it - tubs with or without plants in, pieces of wood, chairs, beach wind breaks, whatever you have. The more unsightly the better, just keep it on your side.

Or you could invite lots of friends and family round, all sit staring into neighbours garden, perfectly friendly, admire it, say how nice it looks, how lucky there is no 6' fence to hide it etc. Repeat as often as possible.

Just show you have stopped caring what they do and that you are still enjoying life regardless.

Should have been over whoops

My old neighbour used to be a friend till we fell out and she took a black bin bag and ripped all the ivy that was growing other our fence into hers wished I had put a holly bush there instead

I too have problem with a next door neighbour re gardens and despite offering to take place in the neighbour mediation offered by my local council, they were not willing to participate. 3 years ago they removed the 6' fence between our properties. They erected the fence and therefore are legally responsible for its maintenance but the replacement panels have been on their patio for eighteen months now; they refuse to erect them or to allow my adult sons to do so for them. Their garden is a potential danger as they have a large,deep fishpond and an electric railway running around its perimeter. The result of this is that for 3 years my granddaughter has not had the pleasure of playing in our garden...

I recently spoke to the son of the house (in his 30s) offering again to help replace the panels. His response: "You're a slut and a slag and a lousy housewife" - this was shouted at me in front of my house and in earshot of neighbours and passers-by. I might not be the greatest housewife in the world but fail to see why I should be subjected to public abuse by somebody who last entered my home at the age of 3.

If anybody has any suggestions as to how to deal with this situation I would love to hear from them. Having been recently widfowed I have enough stress in my life - am being treated for depression and work hard most days as carer for my GD - and would like to think this could be resolved. Friends have suggested that I move but this was our family home for over 30 years. My sons grew up here and it is full of memories of my late husband. I really don't want to be forced to go...

Tell her to stop trespassing and damaging your property. Your garden sounds like a wildlife haven and you need to keep it that way. Just make sure nothing goes to her side. What are weeds anyway! Even the dreaded stinging nettle is the preferred plant for tortoiseshell butterflies to lay heir eggs.

MaizieD. Thanks for advice. Will ask farmer. And buy a heavy duty strimmer!

Pardon all the extra bits and typos, don't know how that happened! Can you edit after posting?

Only the ivy is a problem for my area as we have old victorian stone walls between gardens and the ivy breaks down the mortar and then the stones fall out. I do all my own repointing and it's hard work..and it's incredible the damage ivy does.

Neighbours on one side got rid of their ivy, yay. The other side is a rental with garden and rampant ivy which crawls over the wall to our side. PLUS now bindweed. Eeek.

Sad really as the last owner was a keen gardener before she died and family sold it and her's was always a picture. Makes me sad to see a jungle... no perennials left, shrubs gone into trees, lawn turned into tall weeds. But that's OK as I can't see it from my ground floor and am only concerned about the ivy. I do enjoy the birds who love the wildness of that garden, but then the landlord comes and strims and chops everything completely down (except the bindweed and ivy!!) between tenants. Then it all goes back to jungle again...

I too have a tree hating neighbour. As we are known for our lovely trees , I did ask her why she moved here . On the other side a nice woman but a stranger to weeding. Every year I fight a battle with wild garlic and her borders are full of them. I did explain why she also needs to weed, she agrees but that is as far as it goes. I prefer to get on with my neighbour so I just bite my tongue.

pensionpat Have you tried just going to see the farmer and asking if he'd mind you strimming back the nettles a foot or so? You'd only need to do it a couple of times a season. Thankfully nettles are quite shallow rooted so any that got through to your side should be easy to get rid of. It would be much worse if they were docks or vetch...

In the garden that I look after, it is the last house in the village, so on the other side of the ranch fence is a farmers field. It is too small to be of any use to him so he ignores it, as is his right. The main weeds are stinging nettles which grow taller than me. They invade the garden which is bad enough. But they come right up to the fence and are unsightly and threatening. I used a rake one day and literally pushed them back.

It goes against the grain to garden someone else's field, but next year I must grasp the nettle, literally, and do something to keep them away. I want a strip of about a foot which would be "no mans land" so that there is a clear space between them and the garden. Any advice would be appreciated thanks.

Love and let live but don't get all prissy about a garden and it's weeds or lack of them PLEASE. Respect your neighbour has a different view and be accepting that your over grown garden may be upsetting to them. Imagine if it was the other way round.

My elderly neighbour feels that anything I have done on our garden involves her opinion. We have boundary markers and her husband used to try to move them. If I planted anything in a certain spot he dug it up. I once found him doing it and asked why. He said it blocked their view of our front door and he liked to know who was coming or going, I put a trellis up some years ago and the old misery was screaming at me as I was blocking her view--- of my garden.

hi, my neighbour came into my garden and started shouting and laying the law down because we cut back the large laurel bush on our side of the fence! We only prune it every 2/3 years and they weren't there last time it was cut, but I was promptly told off for invading his privacy........on my side of the garden. Blooming cheek

Hi
just had the same problem with neighbours. I've gone to the RSPB to look at gardening for wildlife, and said to neighbours that it's against the law to trim/cut hedges whilst there are nesting birds. And that I will trim/ prune everything at the end of the flowering season. In the meantime, I've said that we are enjoying bumble bees, bees, birds, butterflies, bats, by providing them with food and homes, working with nature. Weedkiller does kill bees and other beneficial insects. Dandelions provide the first essential food for bees in the spring. Womankind cannot live without bees to pollinate food crops. I've now got some leaflets from the RSPB for my neighbours to read.https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/makeahomeforwildlife/givenatureahomeinyourgarden/?utm_source=DigitalAds&utm_medium=PPC&utm_campaign=GNaH2016

Luckylegs, I have great sympathy with your plight. We live in a corner house with a fairly small garden. On one side the crack willows ( belonging to the council), overhang 1/3 of our garden, blocking out the sun for most of the day. The council will only pollard them every 5 years,m but say we can cut them back as much as we want on our side.This is too big a job for us, and too expensive to do regularly. The laurel hedge comes over the fence obstructing our path. They will crop that every 2 years. Between times its down to us. 6 trips to the tip to get rid of the clippings. And no,m you can't insist on giving it back, you can only offer it. On the other side our neighbour has hazel lb trees along the end of our garden, not overhanging, but tv blocking out the evening dun. It's like living in a tunnel, with no sky to see. The willows had been severely pollard ed when we bought the house, and the hazels hadn't been planted,m so they came as a big surprise over the next few years! I've noticed that people who love trees tend to plant them on their borders, knowing full well their neighbours will have a good chunk of them, and never plonk in the middle of their own garden!

Please consider an alternative way of dealing with weeds rather than use a chemical weedkiller. Proprietary weedkillers are so bad for wildlife. Bees are dying out in huge numbers and this is a real problems for pollination, including that of food crops. To get rid of weeds, either pull them out (make sure you get the roots) or cover them completely with an old blanket, duvet cover etc (be sure no light gets in) and over several weeks, they will die off.

Neighbours are a lottery, and how I wish you could ask for references for them before buying a house close to them!

We have 6 houses close to us, the occupants of 5 of them are lovely, helpful, and we have drinks together,and help each other out when away. The occupants of the last house, which has an outbuilding making up part of our boundary wall, have fallen out with four of the others, but until now had left us alone.

They recently posted a multipage nasty aggressive letter through our letterbox telling us we had three weeks to move our shed and patio away from their wall, we are not to put plants on our patio because watering them might splash their wall, our tree roots are uprooting their drive (they aren't, and anyway the drive belongs to another lovely neighbour we would be happy to work with if that were the case) etc etc. My husband is sick with worry and can't sleep, doesn't want to walk out of the house in case he sees them. We have gritted our teeth and written a friendly reply offering to do some small things to please him and share the cost, but he will be back, we know they never give up once they have a set idea in their heads, both of them will go off on a rant at the slightest excuse, so not a case of calling round with a cake as peace offering!

Neighbours are a lottery. Sounds like you haven't been lucky with yours. At the very least they should have advised you of their intentions in a neighbourly manner as regards pruning back, and by law, offered you the clippings as they are your property.