PROBLEM GARDEN AND HOW TO SOLVE IT

Friends took down a Leylandii hedge which gave them an unwanted additional 4 ft of border. He was quite fit and active, plus money was not an issue so they laid paving slabs ( attractive Cotswold stone ) along the newly revealed fence which gave them access for weeding etc, and at intervals a few more slabs to give a place to put benches. These ideas might not be practical for you (although the benches might be useful) but you might enjoy a carpet of plants such as Poached Eggs which will give cheap colour to your newly deepened border (just scatter seeds). Equally you might consider Clover. It’ll spread - maybe in time replacing your lawn - but sadly it won’t help you with eliminating the well-established weeds like mares tails.
CariadAgain is 100% right about fence heights. You’re bending over backwards to do the right thing so please don’t let your neighbours bully you.
I think we’d all like some before & after pics if you have a chance.
B st of luck.

Our garden is still not large, about 40ft x 12 on one side and a triangular one the other side 40 ft x up to 15 feet and about 8 foot at the back.

One side will be hard standing for cars and the other side will be a small courtyard garden. with a utility area at the back for bins, woodstore and herbs.

Losing the leylandii will increase the house value, and make your garden nicer for you.

Buddleia, is a fast growing screening plant.
6 by 6 trellises or screening by the roll such as split bamboo cane placed at selected intervals, and pergolas are all privacy items.

Grass can grow long if you are not too keen on tidiness. When your house is for sake a big grassy garden will help your house to be more attractive to buyers.

I've not rtft but I am disabled and bought a telescopic chain saw pole lopper off Amazon around £80/90. I managed to lop down a Japanese maple/Acer that was growing very high and wide. Look at Age UK for handymen etc. Hope this helps.

I bought my bungalow knowing that the boundaries were mainly leylandii. The neighbour at the back has moaned constantly about them. While I don't blame her, I couldn't afford it. This October I'm having the leylandii hedge at the side of driveway removed and replaced by a fence. An added bonus will be, it will give me more driveway room. Then a couple of weeks later, the same firm will trim the leylandii at the back of the house, as well as other trees and large bushes. Next year I might get the remaining leylandii removed totally. My adjoining neighbour (not the lady at the back)is horrified but he doesn't have to maintain it.

CariadAgain is correct re the leylandii putting people off buying a house. I turned two houses down because of those dreadful trees, I did not care that the houses were nice enough

That is the one big job I would have done asap before they grow another 3`. I walk down a lane where the leylandii in a garden are about 40` tall and they have special equipment in to trim it to that height. I would spend the money on having them professionally removed, a one-off cost.

Surprise!! MOnica 🙂

M0nica

Be careful whayt you wish for. We have just moved into a new home with a.small heavily overgrown jungle of a garden. Yssterday we had a man, or rather a man and his mate, in to completely clear it. he did as I asked. I am now appalled to realise just how big our garden really is!

Oh go on Monica - you'll make some of us envious....

How big is it? I'm forever working out just how many square feet of space a garden has and wasn't going to stop until I'd managed to cram in enough square footage (ie by adding raised beds) to grow a substantial amount of food for one person. I can't stand the "concrete and tarmac" gardens so prevalent where I am now - and that included my own ...until I changed it.

Be careful whayt you wish for. We have just moved into a new home with a.small heavily overgrown jungle of a garden. Yssterday we had a man, or rather a man and his mate, in to completely clear it. he did as I asked. I am now appalled to realise just how big our garden really is!

Madmeg I would have been charged an extra £300 if my fencer had disposed of the fencers. As it is we were able to dispose of them ourselves. The cost of 12 fence panels and posts was £1,775. The fencer charged us the same amount in labour. He had to take down the old fence, take out the old posts, dig out new post holes through deep clay as he realigned the fence, and cement the posts in with his own cement.

I would certainly see if you can get a better price as others have suggested. So glad you now have one of your neighbours onboard and possibly the other. Leylandis are very dominating and block light. You don’t realise how much so until they are gone. We had some 40ft high and what a psychological boost it was when they were chopped down to 6ft. We actually left bare trunks on our side which looked awful until Ivy grew up them. It is at the end of the garden.

You now have a lot more space and made your garden bigger. Your garden is going to be more attractive to a buyer if you decide to move.

1. Is access easy to get at the fence? - as it's said they will charge more if access is hard.

2. Would you be expecting them to take away/dispose of the old panels etc?

That's possible extra costs to factor in.

The £2k price is just for the fence along the back - 8 panels. No posts or gravel boards needed. That's £250 per panel, obviously fitted. Seems a lot to me. I believe you can get "extenders" for the posts to increase the height, which cost very little and even at £100 per panel the materials would only come to about £800. £1,200 labour seems extortionate just to slot them in. Might see if we can get a better price from someone else. Anyway will have run out of money for a few months.

The chap at the back came round for a look and actually said he could see we had done the right thing. So am now not worried about the folks on the lower side when we removed the Leylandii there next week.

Onwards and Upwards (or downwards!).

Anyway, most of the rear bushes are now down and we are thrilled with the appearance. The extra width has greatly improved the shape of the garden such that it looks tons bigger (well, it is). We have chosen a coloured gravel and are finishing off the wooden border stuff we bought about 6 years ago and never fitted.

No, I wasn't thinking of your friend, I have heard of someone who had to have an exorcism performed on old property.

That is odd, though.
I'm not sure what you can do about it. Barbed wire fences?

An Anglican priest will also perform an exorcism if needed.

Allira

^I've just been on there this morning asking the price for spiritual house clearing in my case^

I thought a priest especially appointed for this would perform an exorcism free of charge?

Probably so.

But you're thinking of a Catholic Priest and presumably re a previous issue (ie my friends haunted house). My friend is now very tied-up with one of her adult children being very ill now - and she's sorting that out (hopefully) first - though I've wondered whether her house is exacerbating things. She's describing it as "cursed" and wondering whether to sell it now - rather than try and sort it out. I'm urging sorting it out personally and refusing to give in. The Catholic avenue didn't work out for her anyway....as their response was not a helpful one we felt....ie it was a verbal "We'll pray for you".

I'm thinking of my own house and in a different respect. Mine isnt haunted - but it does have neighbour problems (eg there has been a high amount of trespassing in my garden or attempted trespassing - 4 different lots of neighbours doing so!!!! and part of my garden has been legally stolen by one set of neighbours since I moved here!!!!!!!) and, according to the box of legal papers I found here when I moved in, there was enough info. there that I got the impression the problems have been pretty longlasting. Basically the first incident only took about 2 months after I moved in and the most longstanding neighbour informed me (almost in those words) that I must do what she/they wanted or "There Vill Be Trouble Jahwohl" (cue for me not thinking she meant it to start with and it was a type of sense of humour that I'd never encountered before - as that's not normal to act that way). So I'm taking a different angle on mine and thinking along the lines of maybe leylines? maybe it's because it's in line with nearby mobile phone transmitters? I've had an offer from what should be a good person for me and my house to be sorted and I've been checking the "going rate" as I'm waiting to make contact with them and I don't know if they will be expecting payment or what the situation is there - and I feel it would be fair to offer some payment.

I've come from somewhere where I never ever even heard of anyone else having neighbours trespassing or neighbours trying to steal part of the garden - so it's been a surprise to me that I've heard of a LOT of it here and had so much problem with it myself. I try to get the message over that that sort of behaviour is not normal and I've never even heard of it in the area I'm living in - until I moved and I keep being told a variety of odd neighbour incidents. I find it very odd...

I've just been on there this morning asking the price for spiritual house clearing in my case

I thought a priest especially appointed for this would perform an exorcism free of charge?

I've just asked Chat GPT for you. It said mid-range fence panels 6' tall are £40-£55 each. Noted that concrete posts are being reused - but there may be some extras (eg screws, gravel boards). Based on £50 per panel = £1200-£1300 for 20 fence panels of 6' tall each..

Then there's the labour costs. They say most fencers will charge a day rate - of £200-£400 each.

There's a variety of other "bits and bobs" - eg if you want them to dispose of the old panels etc for you there will be a charge.

Don't know how long the fence is - but it sorta confirmed my feeling that £2,000 is probably not an unreasonable charge.

It's a blessing that you can do this with a fence - as I had a great long tatty unmatching fence with no concrete posts on the house here when I bought it. Well I did have - until the first winters winds - they're strong and frequent here. Don't even ask what the cost of the wall I replaced it with was......it comes in "eek" territory, especially as I'm from an area where walls are usually brick and not concrete blocks (so yep it had to be brick - to match my West Country tastes). It's probably part of why my hair turned white at about that time.....

So that price really doesn't sound too bad to me - unless it's only a couple of panels long. Better still if the neighbour will pay 50% - and yep...it's worth checking whose responsibility it is - in case you get lucky and it's a joint thing.

You can get some sort of idea of what fence panels cost by looking on Amazon - yep...they sell them too. Though I imagine it's not likely to include better-quality ones. But it will give you a ballpark figure.

Then there's his time to pay for too.

The quickest way to figure it all out though is to put a query into Chat GPT (just google and you'll get the website coming up and even I have managed to do the couple of minutes worth to access it).

In that query - put how many fence panels are concerned and their height etc.

I'd put in a query worded like "How much for mid-price range quality fence panels. It will be x number of fence panels at y feet high. Location is such-and-such town/city. Please include typical price for labour in this town/city". You'll probably have your answer back within a matter of a couple of minutes.

I've just been on there this morning asking the price for spiritual house clearing in my case and it duly told me the several levels concerned, what is possible, suggested how I can do it myself, suggested some possible ways to find a practitioner and what the cost will be (in my case - somewhere between £100-£500, dependant on a variety of factors Chat GPT listed for me).

Then you can tell how reasonable - or otherwise - that price is. I'd say it quite likely is a reasonable price. But you can check for yourself on there and see.

As I keep getting quoted "Prices of materials have gone up - a LOT - since Lockdown" and I think it is indeed the case from what I can see.

Madmeg

Do get three quotes for the fencing!
And make sure he doesn't charge you for today as well.

Our fence panels were rotten so we ordered the panels ourselves and with a team of family and neighbours took the old ones out and slotted the new ones in.
Don't do it in a windy day and grease the concrete panels with candle wax.

I’ve just had a boundary fence replaced with the neighbours sharing the cost. It is 72ft long and needed new posts. The panels have a concave trellis on top, so not the cheapest. The total cost including installation was £3,775. I hope this gives you some idea of what costs are like.

The guys started yesterday, have removed about half the "trees" from the back border. Surprisingly, it revealed two decent height shrubs in their garden in seemingly good condition. Our chap doesn't think there are any more though.

However, the removal did reveal the fact that a good part of the fence is rotten (he picked at one panel and the top crumbled easily in his hand) so it will need to be replaced. However, he says the concrete posts are perfectly sound so it will just be the cost of new panels (plus his time, of course!). He reckons he can install taller panels of vertical wood with two cross pieces front and back to strengthen them - and has explained this to the affected neighbours. I am a bit shocked by the cost though - £2k (presumably shared between us). But maybe I am grossly out of date with costs. I admit that a nice new fence would be a good thing all round - but wasn't something we've budgeted for.

The folks below us have not been in touch again.

The garden man rang last night to say he couldn't come today due to his wife being unable to do the childcare, which he is doing. I like a hands-on dad, but it means a day lost for us.

Charleygirl5

Please do not write in capitals, it isn't necessary.

Some of us like a capital letter from time to time Charlygirl5!
I also like an exclamation mark & a smiley-face. 😊

We trim often, finding it easy to keep in front of problems
I wish our neighbours would, not on our border, thankfully.

Although the ones behind don't bother, we can't reach right across and they'd let their side grow into huge trees.

Madmeg

The guys are coming tomorrow to do the job - rear mixed hedge and bottom semi-dead Leylandii hedge removed, top Leylandii lowered by about 4 feet. Keeping this as it is in good nick. DH went round to the people below us just to inform them. Assumed they wouldn't be bothered as their garden is about 3 feet lower than ours and therefore about 7-8 feet lower than the top of the fence - but they didn't like our plan either! Of course they only see the top few feet of the hedge where it's nice and green, not the brown dead side. Said they would come round this afternoon to have a look at our side but they didn't do so.

I think our name will be mud in the neighbourhood.

The removal of the two hedges will add nearly a third to the usable size of the garden.

I'm assuming the two affected fences are pretty secure, so we will think about "toppers" for them - we can't afford a new fence.

Thanks for all your ideas - I will let you know how it goes.

Sounds a nice solution. Good luck.

Perhaps trimming often will allow upper hedge to remain nice.

We trim often, finding it easy to keep in front of problems.