Lawns overshadowed by neighbouring trees

If a leylandii hedge between gardens is a problem, the local council can make an order to reduce the height. Ask at your local council (when the lockdown ends).

Our house backs onto a Woodland Trust forest. A neighbour decided to take matters into his own hands and hacked away at trees overhanging his garden, which he is entitled to do, the Trust told him.Unfortunately, he hacked too much and too many, including as a favour(unasked for) the one overhanging our garden and I fear the trees are dead now. It’s like looking out onto a post apocalyptic landscape instead of vibrant green. I’m hoping they’ve just had a set back and will come good next year.

How do the wood pigeons keep magpies away from other birds' nests?

Did you train them? I'd like to be able to train ours.

I get on very well with my neighbours because we give and take. I don’t complain about their yappy dogs (mine rarely barks unless set off by theirs). Some people build up resentment by constant moaning about minor incidents. If my trees were causing a real problem then that would be understandable.

I think perhaps you have misunderstood the tone of my post.?

Callistemon yes. Now that we are stuck at home or the garden we hold daily pigeon empowering sessions. They have taken to it really well. Of course we also fatten them up which gives them the weight advantage over the magpies. This might make them less nimble but it doesn’t half help when they drop on a magpie from above.

Splat.

We have pigeons and magpies but I'm not sure what you meant by the pigeons keeping the magpies away from the nests of other birds.

The pigeons come into our garden for a fight; the magpies threaten the blackbirds. The pigeons don't seem to threaten the magpies.

Ours are wood pigeons not those scrawny urban birds. They’d make a sizeable pie.

Scotpiper, whether they come back to green depends on what sort of tree they are. Leylandii and the like don't regenerate from brown wood. Great white cherry , hawthorn, and oak do.

We have very little sun in our garden partly because of neighbouring trees. The trouble is the land adjacent is owned by the Realm. We asked the council to trim them as some are enormous. They did come to look at the issue then later told us they couldn't do anything as it wasn't their problem. Our local councillor tried to get the LA to adopt the land but when he contacted the Crown offices they were not prepared to let the land go except for a considerable sum which was surprising as there is nothing they can do with it as it is hemmed in by a pond and we own the ransome strip. Unless we pay a tree surgeon £xxxx our house and garden will forever be in shade.

We have some huge trees at the back of the garden but they're beautifully shaped and have birds nesting in them. I just love trees and never want them cut down - they were there before we were after all and without trees we would be in real trouble. That said we are lucky to have some space of lawn left so it's not such a concern.