should I have to do my neighbours garden

Neighbour has not spoken to me for the last few weeks, how petty to have ended a friendship of over 20 years, we have always been friendly,I've had her grandchildren for sleepovers when my DD was small and I went in, holding my breath when smoke was pouring out of her kitchen door but she had put out the fire and refused to come out. We've had chats in the garden regularly and now she's blanking me all because of a few weeds that have escaped into her garden. Anyone else had this problem.

It's your grass and if your DGD loves it then leave it. The neighbour can be as sour faced as she likes. At the end of the day it's your land and there is nothing she can do about it. Why not seed some wild flowers into your grass and turn it into a meadow? You will get the pleasure of flowers without the hassle of too much work.

Molly10 what a lovely neighbour to have.

Sorry my typing is not good on last mssg., I'm using a new tablet and its difficult to use such a fiddly keyboard

My neighbour is still ranting, she mutters to herself as she cuts everything she can reach that is even slightly poking over her fence. I'm sure she has OCD. I've not cut the gross for three weeks due to rain,my DGD loves running in the longrass and my sour faced neighbour just scowl over the fence.

The bee count is being run by countryfile. I had to take film because I could not count them.
In answer to "what is a proper garden" I think it is whatever suits the gardener, providing it doesn't encroach on neighbours who have their own idea on what kind of garden suits them.

Could you not pot up the stag horn runners and give them to friends?I would love a stag horn sumac.[hopeful] There is one over the road down the hill from me but it won't cross the road .

I have a couple of lavatera which I let grow wild whilst they're flowering because the bees love them and there are so many flowers. When they've finished I trim them back and then in autumn cut them back hard.

My neighbour grows bamboo - a very invasive kind. He's a youngish, single man, pleasant and friendly and not much interested in gardening - I love my garden but trying to stop the stuff coming into my borders is darned hard work! I have now resorted to glyphosate weed killer on the shoots that push through, painstaking stuff, to add insult to injury his Staghorn tree sends out runners into my borders. Not sure how long I can keep fighting the stuff before I'm lost in a forest of bamboo and never seen again!

We have foxgloves and the bees enjoy the hardy geraniums but I would like more bees.

Etheltbags, the bee thing is the bumblebee conservation trust which the BBC had featured as an appeal. When I saw it I joined. It costs £20 a year and you get a pack with poster, booklets, badge, wildflower seeds and lots if advice on how to encourage bees into your garden. I already have lots if bees as I have foxgloves and other bee friendly plants. They do bee walks and stuff like that too.

Oh Dear me. I had a similar problem many years ago. I had a very narrow strip of ground by the side of the bungalow that I owned at that time. It had a few small shrubs, and one year, during the spring/summer, several very pretty wild flowers ie: ox eye daisies, poppies etc grew amongst them. As these flowers attracted the bees and butterflies, I let them thrive. I came home one day from work to find that everything, including my lovely little shrubs had been completely hacked to the ground. I could not believe my eyes. I visited my next door neighbour to see if she had seen the culprit.
Yes, and she knew who it was. It was her gardener, and SHE had instructed him to do it as she did not want any weeds getting into her garden even though there was a fence between our properties !!!!!!
To make matters even worse, she took great delight in telling me this. She was positively gleeful and laughed in my face.
She wasn't laughing though when she received a letter from my Solicitor.
Trespassing on private property, criminal damage etc, with my photographic evidence.
I did not want to take it any further at this time and told the Solicitor so.
His letter mentioned this, but he also added that should anything like this happen again, then it would be taken further.
I never had another problem.
A neighbour can only tackle trees, plants, weeds, that grow over or under the boundary fence. They can cut them back up to that boundary and no further. They cannot encroach on any land that is yours unless of course you permit them too.

It's your garden. Let's say you fix it to her standards. What if she then decides she thinks you should paint your front door or change your fence etc

I can't stand people who are obsessive about their gardens and have to have everything in its place, preferably weed free.

I have a neighbour like that. I honestly think she has OCD.
We have a lovely grape vine growing over the front of our house, and in summer it is rampant, so we have to be careful and clip it back every week in summer to keep it undue control. They have made it quite clear they don't want it over their side.
We even have Greek ladies come and pick the leaves with our permission of course.
They use them in Greek dishes. I love that they do that.

I wouldn't say no to a bit of help though with my unruly garden.

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.

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 .

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

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.

Is she bigger than you.

Greenockgran - what is a proper garden?

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.

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

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.

ethel your garden sounds lovely.

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