#1 - To avoid being a nuisance, remove vegetation which can over hang or invade your neighbor's property and garden space.
My apologies that the photos are over exposed - it was a very sunny morning.
My neighbor doesn't like Engelman Ivy which covers my fence
and which sends out tendrils onto her lawn. Last weekend she removed some of it,
flipping it over the fence on my side. I decided I would trim her side of the fence
in the same way so it could be done with the least amount of damage. (About 5 years ago
she killed off the ivy on her side with chemicals, and I wanted to avoid a repeat of that.)
The fence on my side still retains a hedge-row appearance, though
not as lush. Unfortunately the lawn was excavated last year
and is in terrible shape this spring.
The yew hedge near the house needs shaping, but I want to
help my neighbor before I tend to that.
This is how the Ivy hedge looks from the street
with a terminus of the untrimmed lilacs
at the alley.
I trimmed all the overhanging branches and foliage
over the neighbor's garage.
Likewise, the trimming is taken right down to the ground.
This is a photo of my alley garden. In the center you can see St. Joseph atop his column.
The entire area needs weeding.
Sadly, the boxwood topiaries flanking the gate winter killed.
The kill was confined to their back side so
I just need to cut off the dead wood and I will allow
them to fill in to a natural shape.
Otherwise, hostas, daylillies and lilly of the valley are
doing well. Last year I added a
slow growing dwarf ginko as another
blind in this little hedgerow.
"To lose always and let everyone else win ..."
Works for me.
Do your boxwoods smell like cat pee? I have them flanking the walk up to the front door and I thought there must be some neighborhood cat who considered them a private place to go. But my family informed me last weekend that boxwoods sometimes smell like that. They're right. My boxwoods smell.
ReplyDeleteNo - but my yews do - but there are roaming cats at night who like to hunt critters in my yard while driving my cat nuts.
DeleteI had a neighbor who grew jasmine on his chain link fence to cover it. Unfortunately it climbed over to my side of the fence and tangled around my plants and bushes. I gave up on a few because I couldn't keep up with the vine battle. I was tempted to use a plant poison, but never did. I did love the smell of the flowers. That made up for much of the hassle. Being neighborly can be hard. You have a beautiful yard.
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DeleteYou are a kind and very considerate neighbor. I would not mind flowers crawling over my fence from my neighbor's yard. I would rearrange them just so to add beauty to my own yard but that's me. God bless you for all your efforts Terry.
DeleteThe back side of the ivy looks so...brown. I would love to have a vibrant green ivy fence. I'm sad your neighbour can't see the beauty.
ReplyDeleteThat broad is just plain nuts!! Who would rather look at a chain link fence? I don't understand people who complain about invasive things on their side...mowing takes care of that. I hate people who use chemicals too...they hurt the wild life..just trim it off if you don't like it.
ReplyDeleteMy Ivy is turning red already at the bottom of the vines..I am wondering if they don't get enough light there...(its a six foot tall privacy fence and it faces east...so it gets morning sun and then in the afternoon its shady at the bottom. Ivy is great, the birds live in it and set up nests, its turns red/orange in the fall and its better then looking at a blank fence.
You can't choose your neighbors or your relatives can you?
Actually, they don't like wild life either. I found a dead adult rabbit in my yard - looked as if it had been poisoned and thrown over the fence. I used to fee the rabbits but stopped because she was so furious about them. I even sent a Christmas card that year, apologizing and assuring her I no longer fed the critter. That said - the entire neighborhood has a ton of rabbits - every neighbor tells me how they protect their gardens from them without resorting to chemicals.
DeleteGlad you are happy with your ivy - the nest I discovered is house wrens.
It's been a good lesson for me - and it keeps me busy.
Well I hate to say it but I can see her point in the rabbits...not that I would ever poison anything...(also...if she is setting out poison other animals can eat it, like a dog or cat or anything, what a moron.)But I have a little terrier who takes care of the backyard bunnies in very unsettling ways..(my sweet dog becomes a psycho with those things!!) Which is also another reason that nut shouldn't poison something, a dog might get a hold of it.
DeleteThis year our rabbits have gone wild...they are all over the place (maybe the mild winter here helped more survive) and eating things they don't normally eat, like my Butterfly Weed. But I spray the plants and hope for the best.
I can't say they did it - but I wondered.
DeleteWhat Yaya and Angela said. But for the rabbits. In our yard, they are awful. We have a tablet on one portion of the mulch that has a rabbit w/the words, "I love my salad bar." They eat everything to a nub if you let them. Squirrels are just as bad and they take away all the birdseed from the feeders, letting the little songbirds go hungry. Bastards (bless their hearts).
ReplyDeleteDoughboy
Haha! What my neighbor didn't realize way back when is that bird feeders attract rabbits, squirrels, and mouseketeers. So I wasn't the only one feeding critters.
DeleteAnyway - your bird feeders are part of the 'problem'.
Yeah we found that out -- we quit filling them a long time ago. Critters still won't go away.
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