Where is the couch?

I need to lie down and moan for a bit. We ought to have a couch.

Does anybody know what Norwegians argue the most about? Trees and hedges! Summer is the high season for arguments, fist-fights, copper nails and solicitors, and all about trees and hedges.

The rule of thumb is 1:3 which means that if I plant a shrub or tree one meter from the border line, it may grow to three meters tall without my neighbor being able to demand I cut it.

Things planted exactly on the border may grow to two meters tall, but both parties must agree.

When we bought this house 11 years ago, a sweet elderly couple owned the property north of us. They moved six years ago. Our home's previous owners and this couple had planted a hedge together. It's a spirea type hedge with lovely, white flowers in late spring. The branches are hanging, and if cut too late, it will bear no flowers next year. Not the kind of hedge to cut square.

Which is exactly what our north neighbor wants to do.

And he wants to reduce the height to about one metre, max. 1,50 to be able to look over it and into our garden.

He actually cut his half square and low, and came down demanding that we do the same because it looked so silly having half a hedge growing naturally, and half carefully trimmed. I refused, and told him that it did not look silly at all from my garden. Which upset him quite a bit, I'm afraid.

So now I have measured a good meter from the border into my garden, and I'm planting thujas! They grow fairly fast, are evergreen and compact, will not grow too wide if I'm careful, and may grow to three meters tall before I have to cut it. Which effectively blocks the nosy neighbor who can't be bothered with making his own flower borders to enjoy.

Once the thujas are properly established, I'm razing our half of the hedge at ground level, and the neighbor may do what he wishes with the rest. I'll miss my flowering hedge, but will survive.

As for the neighbors - they dislike thuja intensely.

 

You are very devious Droopy, it is just what I would do too. I hope they grow fast for you and I hope he shudders everytime he sees the thuja trees.

 

Its a shame you can't build a screen across the back.6 ft.tall fence would stop him .We can do that here in Texas and its done quiet often here.

 

Thank you for your support everyone!

toni - forever, I think. He's a very square-thinking person. He's even cut his berberis square, but I think the Chamaemelis japonica defied him...

glendann, the screen will be built, but more like 10 feet and at the back of our terrace. Then he can't stand on his verandah looking down either.

This is a very strange situation, because the people to the south are much closer, and the garden much more open, but they never affect me, and their moving about never feels intrusive, somehow.

 

Good for you Droopy! I'd do exactly the same thing.
At our old house, we had the most beautiful trees. They were the biggest most beautiful trees on the whole block and I loved them. We got new neighbors one year and the first thing they did when they moved in was ask if they could trim our trees. I went over to their yard with trimmers in hand and asked which branches they would like trimmed and she said "All of them! We don't like the trees because we have no sun in our backyard". Well I pretty much told her what I thought about that idea!! I did end up trimming some branches for them, but I always wondered why they would have bought a house with no sun in their backyard (especially after seeing that they spent NO time outside and didn't even bother to cut their grass!) It was those neighbours and another one that moved in across the street shortly after that made us decide to move to the country. Ironically, the one neighbor that we do have has cut down all of his trees...

 

Oh, Netty, what a situation! Some people ought to stay in apartment buildings and leave the homes with gardens to somebody else.

I know that if we had another neighbor like the north one, we'd move pretty quickly too. Bringing all our plants.

 

I know how you feel. My Aunt moved in next to us about 5 years ago. she insisted that I trim my bamboo of all things, straight across the top at 4 ft tall. It is about 20 plus ft tall. I flat said no. Then she wanted me to take it out altogether! I told her she could do what she wanted on her side of the fence and not to worry about my side.

She doesn't even speak to me now over a couple of stupid things. One was her chicken came over(she didn't keep them penned up) and got stuck in my bamboo and my hubby crawled in and got it out and in the process he got gouged in the eye with a broken piece of bamboo. Anyway when he got it out, he trimmed one wing and put it back over the fence. She called me at the hospital (hubby almost lost his eye) and started yelling and cursing at me when I told her he trimmed one wing so it couldn't fly over the fence. I hung up on her after I told her she was lucky that's all he did, if it had been me I would have wrung the chickens neck. She hasn't talked to me or him since.

In the beginning when she first moved in she also wanted hubby to put a gate on our fence line so she could come over easier. Thank God he said no! Fences don't make bad neighbors into good neighbors but it makes it harder for them to intrude on your space. I feel for you droopy, nothing is more aggrivating than a nosey, demanding neighbor, no matter who they are, I know from experience. I didn't mean to hijack your thread, it just fired me up a bit!!

Oh, and one more thing...she came over when we were gone once and sprayed roundup on a patch of weeds we had growing by a leaky faucet and didnt tell us. My daughter had been feeding them to her guinnea pigs. When I planted a fig tree there a few days later she yelled at hubby across the fence and told us she had put roundup there. The audacity of some people never ceases to amaze me.

 

I had a neighbor once who decided I wasn't taking proper care of my bit of prairie and took it upon himself to mow down the scotch broom- yes it's invasive and nonnative, but I was letting it grow in that area because I'd spotted some Douglas Firs getting established. The noodlehead took out several of them before I stopped him!
Why cut the spirea (sounds like Bridal Wreath, which I love)? Seems like it would be lovely poking through the thujas...

 

Desertflower, shared misery is half misery, so please feel free to vent your anger whenever you feel like it. Relatives are best when kept behind tall fences, or preferably far enough away to visit by car only! Cutting the bamboo, what a waste.

CritterPainter - I hope to have a 10 ft tall, solid green wall, with no room for anything to poke through. Especially neighbors with long noses. We've moved a couple of bushes, so I'll still be able to enjoy it.

 

May your thujas grow quick and full! I completely sympathize... though it our case, at our previous house, the neighbor who kept wanting us to trim up our yard and get rid of our trees solved the 'problem' himself by planting (of all things) English Ivy all along the chainlink fence on that side. Shortly it was a thick wall of (invasive) greenery, and we didn't see him in the back anymore.

A neighbor down the street had worse than I, as she had to deal with one of those who only had tiny perfectly geometric greenery dotted in a row... and who would come over when she was away and whack off branches from her trees and cut her shrubs back - she finally had to get the police in on that one to keep them from trespassing, pretty sad.

I'm sorry your neighbor is so nosy, it's awful having one of those right by you. The fence sounds like a good thing too.

 

Oh, I wish they would plant themselves in! Which they won't of course.

Geometric design is fine in a garden, but we haven't got a straight line anywhere, and it does not appeal to me at all. I like things a bit wild-looking.

They always want us to buy things together, too. Like a greenhouse, or the snow-whatchamacallit that goes "brrrrr" and shovels snow. oops I'd never share anything with those people! They are far too bossy. In addition to that, they keep competing with all and sundry. They need to have the newest, most expensive, largest of just about anything. I'm so glad that I never feel that way - what a waste of energy and money.

 

Wow, neighborhood politics are so fascinating! I can't wait until I own my own house and can do stuff like that!