Sorry STWites, i’s come to this…

Garden boundary between us and Mr Knobber-Next-Door is a large beech hedge.  About 3m high in places, fairly thick, and has been very healthy until recently.

We like it as it’s a nice natural privacy barrier.  We get it trimmed a few times a year, and have had the guys who come in to do it keep it to the 3m height.

Mr K-N-D doesn’t like it. It doesn’t block his light or anything as it makes up the Northern side of his garden.  Simply put, he’s a lazy sod, and does like the leaves that fall into his garden (yes, that petty eh?).  and reduced the size of his garden (WTF?).  He has over the years gradually cut it back more and more, so that on his side only the trunks remain, hardly a branch or leaf hangs over is garden.

Now it’s starting to show the abuse, and getting a bit gappy in places.  We’re worried that if he goes any further the thing won’t provide the privacy we enjoy from this clown.

The trunks of the hedge lie within the boundary line on our side, so could this count as some sort of criminal damage?

I can understand his desire not to have leaves  dropping in his garden if that’s his way. but we find that the dead ones only drop off after the Autumn/winter when the new growth starts.

WWSTWD??

replace with leylandii – won’t shed leaves and also removes any doubt that you hate him

replace with leylandii

Even better, a mix of native hedging, like hawthorn and blackthorn, but put a deep barrier against suckers on your side when planting the blackthorn. Leylandii is a royal pita, trimming isn’t too bad, but all the bits litter the garden and don’t break down easily, and getting rid is a nuisance. I’ve got a builder’s bag full of trimmings from my two garden hedges, and it’s too heavy to lift into my car to take to the dump!

I was going to suggest that you coppice the Beech then fit the ugliest fence you can find on the boundary, although he might see this as the ultimate win if he prefers bare plants to foliage.

then fit the ugliest fence you can find on the boundary,

Ironically, shortly after he moved in that’s what he did on his side, about 1m from the center line of the hedge.  We thought ‘Ace! even more private!’, but after about 6 months he had it removed.  I’m guessing he realised that he could gain an extra 1.0m of garden without it there, and cut back the beech.  The gardens aren’t exactly extensive, but they’re not that small that you’d noice/enjoy an extra 1.0m  T*t.

I know that you are well within your rights to prune/trim your side of a neighbours encroaching plantlife, but to what extent? So much so that the plant starts to die?

No you mustn’t damage the plant/tree or you are liable for replacement. How that’s enforceable I don’t know! Had the same with my neighbours.  Shared hedge of 2 rows and found a man with a chainsaw one morning hacking into my side. Told him to stop and look at the boundary (semi detached house) they removed their row and put in a 4ft fence but because the 2 rows had intertwined ours was very patchy in places. Since then I’ve been feeding mine and watering in dry periods and have planted climbers to grow through the gaps. There were also some weed elder trees coming through which I used to chop to ground level but I let them m grow up and they are  5 times more vigorous than the hedge.

People are weird and lazy.

Why do people insist on planting hedges so close to property boarders ? If you want a 6′ thick hedge plant it 3′  inside the boader line .

Just move house. life is to short for knob head neighbours.

Build a wall and make him pay for it.

It’s gotta be the leylandii for the win on this surely as it will cause him much ball ache cutting his side back every 30 mins. lol

Neighbour will get fed up and hopefully move house like a good little thing 😉

Just move house. life is to short for knob head neighbours.

Just the advice I was going to offer to the OPs neighbours, see this…

Why do people insist on planting hedges so close to property boarders ? If you want a 6′ thick hedge plant it 3′  inside the boader line .

3m is high … I can see why the neighbours are pissed off TBH

Surely it’s best to tend for what is left.  Beeches are pretty hardly so if you accept what he’s cut off from his side, make sure that the remaining hedge is well watered and fed (I believe a pretty basic natural mulch would do the trick).

Offer to have a fence built on his side to prevent the leaf problem and agree on a sensible height? Fights with neighbours are painful and this is much cheaper than trying to move house

Build a wall and make him pay for it.

Wait till his kid comes in your garden to get his football back, then stick him in a cage indefinitely.

Firstly beech hedges are great so your neighbour is wrong but if the hedge is 3m high and on right on the boundary then it does need to be mutual. Always good to keep neighbours on side. As above it might be time to start cultivating a new hedge fully on your property. I put ours in about 18″ inside the boundary which seems ok at 2m high. I go round the neighbours and cut their side too.

Is he aware of the High hedges act 2013?

Is he aware of the High hedges act 2013?

I’m sure he probably is, but knowing him he is the kind who will act first and seek forgiveness later.  He is a Warden at the local church too, so probably in his mind this is a perfectly Christian way to act.

…And…

Just as my wife was about to leave the house yesterday morning there was someone trimming the hedge from his side, trying their best to remove as much as possible by reaching over to our side.

She asked them to stop, which to their credit they did and apologised.

She went to see Mr K-N-D and told him to get the trimmer guy not to do anything more on our side or take off any more height.

Next she sees the guy standing on top next doors’ shed doing exactly what had been asked not to do, to which he replied that he had been told by Mr K-N-D that she had said this was OK.  Err, no, stop she says.

Worryingly, she had to be out of the house yesterday and overnight, so what she will go back to is a concern.

As ever when he acts like this I am away at work across the other side of the world, and Mrs Seadog is not the bravest or confident of people. So massive credit to her dealing with this confrontation, a small thing for some, but to her this is massive and stressful.

Perhaps find a few knotweed seeds and distribute them over the fence? Else, try this: https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2017/06/20/man-plots-wonderfully-long-term-revenge-council-cut-tree/

As for the High Hedges Act, it certainly does fall into the category of ‘High Hedge’ but that doesn’t mean you are allowed to hack it down to the height limit without permission.  The council can be involved and they can order it to be cut back if it is deemed to be a nuisance.

And as it doesn’t encroach on his garden, limit the enjoyment of their space, block light etc I can’t see it being considered a nuisance upon his side.

If anything, by cutting it back so severely on his side he is forcing it to grow tall, as happens with beech.  It is a very mature hedge, been there longer than either neighbour, some of the trunks are up to 20cm in diameter, and it’s about 10 bushes/trees altogether.

My feeling is that he is trying to wreck it as much as possible, and as that boundry line is ours, we would be responsible for replacement with a fence if it ultimately needs it.  We need to get more blackbirds nesting in there.

3m high on a garden boundary and dropping leaves everywhere – I’m with your neighbour on this one. You don’t need 3m height for privacy and what’s it to you if someone doesn’t want to be raking up leaves in their garden caused by a hedge in a neighbour’s garden? Replace it with a fence and stop being the K-N-D…

@fuzzywuzzy,

To be fair to myself, He doesn’t get any leaves on his side, because on his side he’s cut it back to bare naked ugly stumps.  And, as it’s beech, the dead leaves at the end of the growing season don’t drop all in one go.  They stay attached until a new leaf pushes them off, or the a massive wind rips them off.  Which, due to the prevailing wind direction anyway, send them into our garden.  So the leaves dropping is really a none starter.  It’s the brutal way he’s gone about it.

As for the height, well there’s one spot, behind his bins and between our shed that is maybe 3m.  He has never actually said to us that he would like it to be any height lower than what it is.  To decide that it’s too high and then get someone in to start cutting it down without asking is, technically, not permitted.  The guidance on this from various sources RHS, County Council and Government etc all says the same thing, try to sort it amicably first.  He has never been amicable about anything.  Just does what he wants and huff and puffs when challenged if he is causing a problem.

Case in point, someone who was working on his garage was cutting a concrete lintel a few feet from my car, covering it in concrete dust, not the best of stuff to have on the car.  When I asked him to ask the guys to at least tell us in future so we could move our car out of the way, he acted as though it was my fault for letting my car get covered.  Three more times the same thing happened. I could report many more things like this.

For someone who applied to be a Lay Preacher, but was refused due to undisclosed convictions, he doesn’t really uphold the Christian Love thy Neighbour ethic.

Garden fences always look a bit shit. But as it’s you boundary you could try defining the line with a good old fashioned three foot chain link fence. Replant with some really vigorous native hedging and in a few years you’ll have a decent hedge. Neighbour won’t be able to trim too far back as the chain link will prevent this.

He is a Warden at the local church

Your never going to win , I’ve tried to deal with a couple of church wardens – complete bell ends .

As we waited for probate on our house our new neighbour put a new fence up about 6inches onto our land, and whilst it was down chose to cut through the trunks of the Leyland hedge at about 1.8m so it looks terrible now and slowly dying off.

Nowt we could do without massive ballache.

life is too. short.

can’t you plan some nice climbers that could fill out the bare patches? MiL has done that quite well with passion flower

can’t you plan some nice climbers that could fill out the bare patches? MiL has done that quite well with passion flower

We’re going to be moving a small pine tree to help with one of the gappy bits, and use some wicker type fencing between two sheds to help with blocking him out for that bit between when the dead leaves are off and the new leaves are not fully grown.

We really are loathed to put up a fence, as without spending vast amounts it will not be as nice, or a friend to the creatures who have lived in there over the years.  It’s a quiet spring if the blackbirds don’t have a couple of broods on the go. Sparrows seem to hold regular turf wars too.

If we did lose it we could gain about 20 square metres of land on our side of the boundry! but then I would have a full view of his dog cra**ing on his lawn each day from the upstairs windows. Nice.

He is a Warden at the local church

Your never going to win , I’ve tried to deal with a couple of church wardens – complete bell ends .

Fortunately, despite not church people ourselves we are on good terms with the Reverend.  I’m sure he knows how this guy antagonises people, and if we were to speak to the Rev about this, perhaps a word about christian virtues wouldn’t go amiss.

Save your breath, I witnessed one of our local parishioners who parks on double yellows arguing with an ambulance that couldn’t get past that it was her right to park where she wanted ‘for access’ as she has a disabled card. Missing the point entirely that it was an ambulance and that she might need one sooner or later. This is the same person who actually parked over our driveway so we couldn’t get out, but she was late so it was OK (in that instance i went down the church and the Revd who is a lovely man made an announcement so she could come and move it!).

We need pictures of trimmed bush.

Is your neighbour Brazilian?

“I would have full view of his dog …. etc etc..”

Hold on a second there cowboy …. you were moaning about him getting upset about cleaning up leaves !!??

Your on the other side of the world … Your binoculars must be brilliant if you get to see his dog each day.

Sounds as if you both need a your head bashing together.

Good luck.

Have you offered to trim ‘his’ side of the hedge?

You get some right crappy neighbours.  We currently have just one, but he is in the corner of the cul-de-sac.  I usually trim both sides of the front hedge and clean up, as mostly the neighbour doesn’t have a trimmer. The whole hedge is fortunately on our land.  Our other hedge just boarders our garden and some parking spaces, so I’m free to trim that. We keep it around 4-5 foot though, as any higher needs ladders.

Rear garden is just a fence – we swapped out the old fence a couple of months ago. Exactly the same – even painted both sides so the neighbour didn’t have to do it.

When we first moved in (new house), the then neighbour went mad that we put the fence in – had to be custom made with 9ft wide panels due to drains. She wanted an access gate so she could go through our garden (middle of a 4 house terrace) and we said no because the deeds said there was no access. Fortunately it’s never been an issue since, just one awkward sod.  Both houses now have conservatories where there would have been a gate.

<div class=”bbp-reply-author”>Ro5ey
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“I would have full view of his dog …. etc etc..”

Hold on a second there cowboy …. you were moaning about him getting upset about cleaning up leaves !!??

Well I was just using that to add flavour to the lack of privacy element.

As for being on the other side of the world, well I get to spend lots of time at home by working away for half the year. And My wife and kids do live there permanently.

However, seems like a small bit of progress is being made. Mrs Seadog came home from her trip away to find that the hedge had not been molested any further.  Also, a letter was through the door saying, to paraphase, that he wants to talk about it.  Maybe he has cottoned on to the fact that agreeing first to a mutually acceptable compromise is better than just going ahead and annoying his neighbours.  Not a totally polite letter I’ll add, a bit passive aggressive (reference to a missing boundary marker, not buy us…), but a start.

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3m high, taking up 20 sq m of garden (assuming a similar overhang on his side would be needed to keep everything healthy and good looking) and needing maintenance a few times a year (2, 3, more?) seems like a lot of negatives for your neighbour who doesn’t sound like he really wants the hedge there in the first place.

Long term solution would seem to be to erect a wall/fence, plant what you like on your side of it and leave him to create a dog shitting area on his.

3m high, taking up 20 sq m of garden (assuming a similar overhang on his side would be needed to keep everything healthy and good looking) and needing maintenance a few times a year (2, 3, more?)

Nothing over hangs on his side at all.  Like I said above he has cut it back to bare stumps on his side, and has tried to started to cut across the top from his side to reduce the height. Imagine a hedge that has grown with its stumps up against a wall, and then had the top shaved to a pionty ridge.

At least he has finally opened up the possibility of some dialogue by writing a letter to us.  However, me being the suspicious type thinks that this may be just to have some evidence that he has tried to be reasonable, before going to the council and demanding some action.

If the guy had come to us in a friendly manner and asked ‘Do you ind, but I’m finding the hedge a bit big and intrusive, could you take a bit off the top?’ we’d be all up for some compromise.  By that I mean, yep we’ll look after it, but you stop hacking off the branches from your side.  In places he has cut off branches at the lower levels that grow toward our side.

Nothing over hangs on his side at all. Like I said above he has cut it back to bare stumps on his side, and has tried to started to cut across the top from his side to reduce the height. Imagine a hedge that has grown with its stumps up against a wall, and then had the top shaved to a pionty ridge.

You can remove all the branches from one side of a tree without doing it any effective harm. Think of espaliers. OK, from your point of view that decreases the number of branches to block the view, but you can do things to thicken up the hedge on your side.

Given that it is 9 feet high I don’t think it is unreasonable to want to lower it either, though it would have been better if he had discussed it first, before going ahead on his side.

Hedges are much nicer than fences if you have the space, though I can’t say I’m that keen on beeches. Better than laurel or cypress. A mixed native hedge of hawthorn, blackthorn, field maple etc. would be much nicer but a lot of work to remove your current hedge and replace.