should I have to do my neighbours garden

I love trees but I do think they need to be of an appropriate size for a domestic garden. I know that sometimes the trees have been there since before the houses were built but it can be so annoying to not be able to use a large part of my garden due to the sap and bits and pieces falling off the huge trees between my neighbour and I. They rent and don't have the power to cut back, maybe, but I notice that the house is now up for sale and live in hope that someone will do something soon before I have no grass left. It's like autumn all the time!

Huge trees belong in huge gardens or parks.

One of our neighbours had lovely trees growing around her boundary, mostly conifers which did not form a hedge. No neighbours were complaining.
She decided to have them all cut down, which the tree surgeon did while she was out at work.
When she came home she was nearly in tears, as she realised how exposed and empty looking her garden had become. Her view was of other people's roofs!

We are now giving her cuttings and saplings to fill the garden again. It will be a long wait!

When my (small) garden needed too much effort to maintain, I had it stripped out and gravel laid with just a few plants. Not everyone's taste, I know, but at least it's tidy. While the man was clearing it, my neighbour climbed onto her toilet seat, and started to yell at him through the little upstairs bathroom window (quite funny really). She shrieked that he needed to stop as she liked my plants and it would spoil her garden. Turns out that though I was careful to keep it all on my side of the 5' fences, she had taken some tendrils of honeysuckle, etc and put them in the soil on her side, hoping they'd grow, and this poor man had dislodged them all. I asked him to carry on and she didn't speak to me for months. I wasn't that bothered until she asked me for £20 to replace the plants she accused me of destroying. I paid up to keep the peace and, to be fair to her, she does now have a lovely garden.

mamacaz I do not think it is anti social to plant trees or shrubs. It is contributing to the improvement of the air quality for a start and maintaining habitats. Having garden is a responsibility and part of that is not making yourself a nuisance to others I agree. If trees/shrubs encroach on someone else's much loved garden /home that is just not fair! An occasional overgrowth should be tolerated but regular nuisance is not neighbourly! When we moved here I removed a huge leylandii from my garden and the lady next door came round to thank me for the difference I had made to her life. She no longer needed the light on in her living room all day!!

I'll no doubt get shot down in flames for saying this, but I think it's downright anti-social to grow anything that you either can't or won't contain within the boundaries of your own garden, unless neighbours have expressly said that they don't mind.

I have a clematis montana one end of of my long garden border and I have planted a Rambling rector rose at the other end. The border at the bottom of my garden backs onto two other gardens. These two very vigorous plants are very likely to take themselves off into their gardens.

penstemmon what a lovely garden, mine is like that a bit thats why Im cant understand the neighbours attitude. If i had some lovely flowers growing over my fence from next door I would be grateful and enjoy them.

Lovely garden Penstemmon. Ours was quite good (but not as good as yours) at our old house and our neighbour would trim everything back as far as he could reach into our garden and let the bits drop on our side.

Where we live now we have a very large walnut tree a few feet in from the fence and obviously growing over the neighbours garden. Our old neighbours appreciated the walnuts and all was well. However, our new neighbours, in the middle of last years growing season had the tree cut back to their boundary. We should have had a really good crop last year, but they stopped developing after the tree was cut. Then they moaned that the few walnuts which dropped on their side weren't any good!

Neighbours!!

Thanks Pollen

Lovely garden Penstemmon. My Asters are not out yet, but just about to burst. I have a similar style to yours, but there are six foot fences on both sides of the neighbours. This is good for keeping amicable with them and at the same time stopping the overflow in its tracks.

I love my garden. It is a bit wild but not out of control. I get cross because we back onto a yard where brambles grow and it is bloody hard work to keep it out of my flower beds. However if my shrubs/trees annoy my neighbours I understand they need to cut back the overhanging bits..tbh they can keep the bits!! We all have different view on what is a 'lovely' garden!

I was sad when a neighbour removed their huge fig tree..I used to enjoy a fresh fig as I gardened.

Buddleia are supposed to be cropped hard to about 18 ins in spring so they will flower now and for the next month or so. If they are cropped now, I don't think they will recover much this year. Having said that they are thugs, great flowers and they attract lots of butterflies, but they do grow out of control very quickly at this time. If your neighbour has cut back the flowers overhanging her side, I would not have thought that would affect your view of it. If it has been seriously cropped she would have had to come to your side to do it. I have had to cut back one side of mine quite seriously to allow us to be able to walk up the path to the shed and it still looks stunning.

Plants and shrubs from both my neighbours gardens have the temerity to grow over to my side of the fence. I just trim them back. What is the problem?

My one real dislike, with good reason, and I have spoken to my neighbours about this, is hops. My skin comes up in great red weals if the hop stalks touch my skin. To trim them back I have to wear a thick top with the cuffs tucked into gloves and make sure they do not go near my face.

Since I explained the problem they have been very good about keeping the hops trimmed back, although odd suckers do still turn up my side of the fence

You have your garden as you want, let her have the garden she wants. She never planted your bushes but they encroach her garden, she is entitled not to ant them or the work involved in pruning them. None of Montys business.

the neighbour is complaining that I dont stopthe plants growing in her plot but you cant stop them only cut them back now and again. I have bought a bottle of weedkiller (against the grain as I hate to think the birds and wildlife could be affected), Ive paid a gardener to trim her side of the hedge as I do every autumn.Unless you are weeding every day they will sneak through.

It's worth bearing in mind that if renting, it might be in the contract that the garden must not be allowed to become a nuisance to neighbours.

You aren't responsible for your invading plants that have gone through to the other side Ethelbags that's why your neighbour has taken to cutting down her own side but you don't like that either She can't win can she? it's none of anyone's business if she wants bare borders either not even Monty Dons

Your opening posts says Should I have to do my neighbours garden so the answer is NO and it doesn't look as if anyone is asking you to I don't get what the problem is I really don't

I have a weird neighbour on one side - she once invaded my garden complaining that the water from my hose had gone on her gravel - with a beautifully neat garden, and lovely neighbours on the other side whose plants (?) grow through my fence. I just trim the bit off that grow through from the lovely neighbours; the plants are all self seeded and a little trim will never be noticed and ignore Mrs neat and tidy but horrid. Being a good neighbour is one of the most difficult relationships

I dont think I sould be responsible for what goes through/under or over the fence. All plants will invade and mine are pretty, a budlea/ hebe and an ivy all got hacked down, I realise the ivy might have been a pest as it was up her wall but I like it and it looks pretty, the hebe and budlea are flowering now and would hav elooked so nice in her garden.
Neighbours garden is lawn with bare border and 2 roses at long intervals(boring). Monty Don says you should never see the bare soil and he would have to look hard to see any iin my garden

BTW were the trees there and not much smaller when they bought the house or did they get much taller since they moved in?

We had a paddock next to us in the UK- and the neighbours sold to a builder. We managed to put a limit to the size of the house built next to our bottom garden - and insist it was a bungalow, with a covenant stopping them enlarging or putting in dormer windows etc. But it was built very close to our 1920s mixed tall hedge- beech, elder, lilac, berberis, mock orange, etc. As soon as they moved in they started to complain about said hedge, which was kept well maintained but at about 3m high. We told them the hedge was there when they first saw the house, when they visited second and third time and when they signed the contract. They reply - we bought that bungalow because it was substantially cheaper than the others. Our reply 'yes, and that was for a reason!' We were very friendly and welcoming- but I'm afraid it didn't last long as they became abusive and unpleasant. We even got a phone call saying we had to go over and get our slugs and snails out of their garden! We did ask for proof of ownership first.

Sitting on teh fence too- without seeing the reality, difficult to comment. But the title of the thread is really not accurate- your neighbour has not asked you to do their gardening, have they?

My best friend in the UK has shambolic garden- loved by wildlife of course, as she rarely goes to the end (long garden at 1940s semi)- but truly I wouldn't like to be her next door neighbour from that point of view. I always do weeding early in the year, as we all know, 1 weed in time saves 1000 (lots of catching up to do next year- as I was not able to this year due to knee replacement)- and it must be really annoying to do all the hard work then see next doors weed seed blowing across all Summer- knowing it will be even harder work to eradicate.

And yes, I am a tree worshipper- and yet, if my neighbour's 30 trees meant I could not enjoy any sun nor plant anything that has a chance to survive- this would be a deal breaker for me. And unfortunately would make the house very difficult to sell too- so I get where s/he is coming from, I'm afraid.

Ethelbags
I cannot see what she has done wrong if she hasn't trespassed in your garden. I cannot imagine how big your garden must be to have 30 trees unless they are miniture ones.
My neighbour one side has 6 big trees,higher than the house they were all planted on the border either side of his top lawn, so the neighbours each side, I am one, have our garden perpetually in shade, where nothing will grow. He refuses to have any pruning done. My late husband used to keep our side manageable, but it is a nightmare now, in the winter I have 10 to 12 bags of leaves a week, to take to the tip in my little car, I could cry thinking about it. No tree surgeon can do anything for me because the neighbour refuses point blank to have no one touch his trees or go in his garden, they can do nothing without access to his. At the front dividing his house and the one attached to it he has conifers higher than the house, which lets nothing grow on the front and every now and then bring the telephone lines down. He has conifers up to

whole of the garden between mine and his, which I have to pay to be kept to 6 feet.
Apart from taking him to court I am a slave to his wild way of letting nature take over. Fortunately I have a garden where I can have the bottom 2/3rds how I would like it.my other neighbour is just lazy, her lawns are now just a meadow of pretty flowers, weeds to the rest of us, but apart fron me digging out the weeds that come through luckily I can put up with it. Her borders just weeds, but she never goes out there,mno washing is ever put and I don't think she ever looks at it.
I think we all have a right to have our gardens the way we like them, I love mine and spend hours in it, but it is spoilt somewhat by my selfish neighbour and I am looking to move.

Sitting on the fence here LOL You say your neighbour isn't speaking to you because of a few weeds which is silly and not worth worrying about, but why are you bothered about her trimming, cutting, chopping anything encroaching her garden she's not coming round with a hacksaw and spoiling your garden she surely has every right to neaten her side if that's what she wants. I didn't see anything in your post that says she was telling you what to do in your garden only what she obviously wants in hers I don't see the problem and of course if she has mentioned she hates trees / bushes etc Again that's just her grumbling so take it with a pinch of salt and carry enjoying you side ...I d deal with any sour faces with a smile hard to keep sour then.
I will add that ivy is a particularly awful encroacher and I hate the stuff it grows like the clappers

One side we have a man who openly states that he "hates gardening with a vengeance" and on the other side I think he is simply lazy. One has a sick wife and the other has a wife full time working so I don't include them as they clearly cannot do the gardens. We sort of have a dialogue, one side saw me trying to clear the huge amount of ivy that had grown over our fence and a couple of years later killed off about a third. The other side acknowledged that the fence was in a terrible state and I thought he intended to replace it but he simply patched it up with bits and pieces.

What can I do? Nothing, we get on well enough although don't see much of each other so I sometime yank out some ivy and often go round with the weed killer you spread straight onto the leaves of other weeds growing through. They are who they are and I just get on with it. There are too many serious things in life than to be petty about next door's lack of garden care.

My neighbour hacks back everything that dares show it's face. At the moment there is a rosa Mundi and a late clematis spilling into her garden. It looks glorious and oddly enough she is not having it hacked back.