New property is surrounded by lovely tall hedges probably same sort of age as the house. Except one section at the back which looks awful. Got round to having a closer look today. Looks like the neighbour at the end of the garden has recently replaced the fence panels and at the time took it upon themselves to cut the main trunks to about 5 foot hence it looks bloody awful. These are a good half a meter into our garden. Every other hedge is taller and perfectly squared. These are now buggered and look a straggly mess. Presume he took advantage of the probate period to get in there and make this mess. I have no evidence it was him however it is obviously cut from the boundary.

Any recourse here? Sucks it up? I imagine removing several Leylandi with foot thick trunks and then replacing with a similar hedge is going to be expensive and time consuming….

What is the hedge made of?

Main trunks cut to 5ft make it sound more like a wall of trees than a hedge.

Edit: Just saw that they’re leylandi. Horrible, horrible things, they’ll have been ruining his garden by sucking all the life out of the soil, and possibly shading his property too.

The ones behind my parents garden’s root system broke the foundations of the shed.

EDit Edit: I’d go with suck it up and plant something less obnoxious, I’ve got privet, hawthorn, holly, a couple of other hedgerow type plants that I can’t identify, and ivy covered fence around my garden, varying from 5ft tall to probably 8-9ft tall.

It’s a pain in the arse to keep on top of in summer, but great for ze wildlife

Fir maintained as a hedge. About a metre wide and around 8ft around the rest of the perimeter. Leylandi I believe. Surrounding houses have similar. It is along the side of his house so basically against a concrete side passage no garden to speak of.

Not sure why the hatred for them our garden seems well planted plenty of things growing under them?

not a big fan of leylandii either – but if that’s what they are measure them again in a week and they’ll be almost back to where they were.

Generally pretty robust, just don’t let him do it again (equally, don’t make an enemy by insisting they grow to 40 foot)

It is along the side of his house so basically against a concrete side passage no garden to speak of.

It’s not doing bad things to his foundations is it? The bloody roots of that stuff get everywhere! I’d have a chat with him about it and see.

Thing is I don’t reckon they will grow back basically above 5ft they only have branches facing our house hence looking straggly, thin and a mess. To square them up like the other hedges I’d have to cut our side down as well. It’s all brown and dead. Can’t imagine it will have a regrowth from the stumps?

Next doors house is a rental and their hedge hasn’t been maintained. Those are definitely tree like now well above gutter line. I’d be more worried about those roots!

Will try to speak to him but barely see him as we are a corner plot and he is at the end of our garden facing a different Street. To be fair he seems a bit of a Dick. Parks his two vans on our boundary making it difficult visibility wise to get out of our drive whilst his 2 car drive is empty and he cones off the on road parking outside his place….

I’ll be butchering my neighbours as soon as she moves on. When they affect the amount of light in surrounding areas, theyre bad news. I lose light in 50% of my garden, and the sun doesnt rise past the height of the leylandaii after 4/5 o clock in the afternoon in the summer.

Ive tried everything to negotiate with my neighbour. But in the end, shes a stubborn old cow who once told me she modelled herself on Thatcher.

……cones off the road!

What a dick.

As I (always 🙄 ) say when hedges come up* on here

Nothing says “**** you, neighbour” like a Leylandii hedge

*yes, yes it was

Move his cones and park outside his house. He’ll be round soon enough.

cut his cones down.

I’ll be butchering my neighbours

every now & then an apostrophe might keep you out of trouble 😀

No apostrophe needed scaredypants 🙂

I have the lime pit already dug.

To be fair I think the hedges probably date from the same era as the house they are so massive (30s). It is a busy junction on a well used route so most of the houses have big hedges round here.

Trying to work out what I’m going to do with this mess as it is right in view of the kitchen / conservatory. If it was the stretch I couldn’t see I’d be less bothered.

Tempted to plant ivy down there and grow it through the trunks

Let’s have a picture then, if we can’t offer advice we can at least criticise your lawn.

The folk replying moaning about leylandii are missing the point. It doesn’t matter what type of plant it is, it’s YOURS and the fool next door had no right to touch them.

Leylandii are perfectly nice, neat and doa great job. They’re also NOT hard to look after, and problems that get featured in the daily mail are due to neglect where people don’t trim them for decades.

Hard to say what to do from here… can you put up a pic?

Thing is I don’t reckon they will grow back basically above 5ft they only have branches facing our house hence looking straggly, thin and a mess.

It’s quite hardy and will hopefully surprise you with how well it bounces back in the coming weeks. I’d probably chat with the neighbour. Call round, introduce yourself and get a proper impression of him. He might actually be alright.

A row of more than 2 Leylandi is covered by the high hedge act for a good reason. If they wanted to they could have complained to the council who would have forced you to get them to the required 2m, 5ft is a little less than than but they will be beyond 2m in a year.
Yes I know they shouldn`t have done it themselves but considering that the council may have made you do it anyway do you really want to start a battle with your new neighbours now.

he cones off the on road parking outside his place….

Encountered someone like that yesterday, used his wheelie bins to deter parking outside his house, I just parked 2ft from the kerb.

We’ve got half a dozen houses in the street who have double drives and garages but park their cars on the road, this really winds our neighbour up, who has a garage and double drive but doesn’t use the garage so has to battle for a space on the road for their 3rd car, all of this amuses me immensely!

Pictures will have to wait till tomorrow. Garden needs work and only just picked up a trimmer and mower so hopefully there will be a 24hr dry period for me to actually get cutting.

I wouldn’t have minded if it was done sensitively and neatly, from what I have read leylandi doesn’t regenerate once cut back into the brown

The folk replying moaning about leylandii are missing the point. It doesn’t matter what type of plant it is, it’s YOURS and the fool next door had no right to touch them.

Actually it sounds like at the time they weren’t his…

Presume he took advantage of the probate period to get in there and make this mess.

They did you a favour, I think.
It’s hard work cutting that stuff back and getting rid of the mess after.

Our garden had a leylandii hedge down one side. Cut it down and ripped out the roots and built a dry stone wall in its place.

Leylandii do have an effect on the soil, that next to the old line of the hedge was totally denuded of all nutrients, it’s taken several years to get it back to anything like decent.

It’s leylandi it will grow back no matter what you think .

This High Hedge Act, how easy is it to get action on it?

My next door but one neighbour has a line of Leylandii & Fir trees that are a good bit taller than the houses.
I’ve spoken to the council, who say that because its on private property they cannot act.

cheers_drive – Member
A row of more than 2 Leylandi is covered by the high hedge act for a good reason. If they wanted to they could have complained to the council who would have forced you to get them to the required 2m, 5ft is a little less than than but they will be beyond 2m in a year.

Nope.

For the council to act under the high hedges act, it would have to be a JUSTIFIED complaint about the height, and any order that’s made isn’t likely to force it tobe cut to 2m at all. The only relevance of 2m is that a hedge is deemed a high hedge once it goes beyond 2m. Nothing to do with how low it should be cut in the very unlikely event the council issue an order.

trail_rat – Member
It’s leylandi it will grow back no matter what you think .

I know that’s tongue in cheek, but still nope.

Once cut too far there will always be a lack of growth. It sounds like this has been cut down to trunks, in which case it’s a gonner.

muddydwarf – Member
I’ve spoken to the council, who say that because its on private property they cannot act.

Try getting in touch with the tree officer, or someone who knows their stuff, if there is a justifiable complaint of nuisance then private property doesn’t come into it.

scaredypants – Member

Nothing says “**** you, neighbour” like a Leylandii hedge

Except coning off the road in front of your house.

The OP is going to have bum his neighbour’s dog, there is no other option.

Leylandii are perfectly nice, neat and doa great job. They’re also NOT hard to look after, and problems that get featured in the daily mail are due to neglect, or where people deliberately don’t trim them for decades.

A good example being in Batheaston, where some woman has been trying, and failing repeatedly, to get planning permission for houses on land she owns, so has, out of spite, planted a row of Leylandii which are now something like 40′ tall, specifically to block the view of the neighbours who objected to the plans.
Personally I’d be round there under cover of darkness hammering copper nails into the trunks, and pouring salt and weed killer around the roots, painting the nail heads black so they’re not obvious. 😈

An apartment block neighbour complained to council who sent out their chap with a camera and clipbord, spoke to him and she was complaining hedge was growing over her drive, we offered to send gardners round, she refused so we cut hedge down all together , result loads of complaints from other neighbours about loss of hedge.

If its there hedge they can do what they want with it.

Just pull that run of leylandii hedge out, get some fresh top soils and put in a nice border.

Can you get a tractor of digger in? will pull them out easy peasy,

I took some photos today, but too tired to play the game of trying to host them somewhere and post them.

Part of the reason we bought the house was the high hedges and privacy having moved from an overlooked terrace.

I’ve smartened them up as best I can but basically can’t see them ever being ‘square’ again unless I cut them all down to 5ft. Looks like he’s had a hack at the bigger hedge on the corner as well, but thankfully would seem the main trunks were far enough away he couldnt reach over the fence.

Currently researching permitted development for sheds, there is an old knackered shed in the corner that needs to go, I think a lovely big summerhouse, just under the 2.5m right up against the boundary should do the trick of compensation for hedge hacking,

Turns out on closer inspection those massive out of control leylandi are actually on his side, rather than at the end of my neighbours garden. Presume he values privacy and doesn’t want them looking in. Also rather randomly he has a huge leylandi between him and his next door semi which he has cut in the shape of a ship (pretty good as well) so he obviously can use a set of trimmers when he wants and is aware of how to cut them.

I can see we aren’t likely to get on. Next time one of his vans moves I’m having my car off the drive and parking it on the road (outside my house, not his).

Are you really going to pick an argument with a new neighbour by going out your way to wind them up?

All for the sake of not starting a simple conversation…

How is the conversation going to go?

Um, hello there, you seem to have leant over our boundary and cut the tops off several of my trees knackering the hedge thats been there for decades?

Yes I did they were too big, so what?

Its done now. And I was thinking about a summerhouse in that location anyway.

You don’t know how it’s going to go without at least attempting to talk to him. Has to be worth a shot surely. Much better than a passive aggressive approach. If it turns out he definitely is a massive cockwomble then go ahead and play games with him.

How is the conversation going to go?

“Well, I was thinking about removing that leylandii and planting something else, but someone butchered it w/o permission from me or the previous owner. Now it I don’t feel comfortable spending a lot of money on something new only to have it vandalized again. So I guess I’ll just live with the leylandii…”

Um, hello there, you seem to have leant over our boundary and cut the tops off several of my trees knackering the hedge thats been there for decades?

Yes I did they were too big, so what?

“OK, at least I know now.

By the way, there were two wheelie bins / some traffic cones obstructing the highway outside so I took them back to the council as I didn’t know whose they were.

Have a nice day – bye!

if the plants are on your side of the garden then he can’t legally remove anything from your side. If he has then its criminal damage and theft. In Scotland I’m pretty sure you can remove any plant material that grows over to your garden without permission but you have to give them the material back to them or it counts as stealing. (note this could be bollox).

If he did this while you were not the owner there is sod all you can do other than getting your own back on him muhahahaha