Thank you for the ideas @clematisdorset I'll probably be best off just taking a sledgehammer to the strimmer. Thus I should be able to put it in a black sack, for next week. I'm a dab hand at wielding a sledgehammer!!
I'd love some thoughts on how best to stop this via some smart gardening. So far I'm thinking of either trellis or some large bushes. The main considerations with using bushes to solve this, is that there a currently a couple conifer trees and other random shrubs lining that wall already so it's a very shaded area. What grows in shaded areas that could work here? Would we need to cut down the trees?
For shady spots, you can consider some tough cookies like hostas, ferns, or even some cool-looking ornamental grasses, and for conifer trees maybe you can trim 'em a bit to let some light in.
Most conifers can't be conveniently 'trimmed' to let light in, so that really isn't a sensible suggestion. @ajgisme - if you can give us a photo of the site, we might be able to suggest suitable planting - and there's plenty of options, but we'd also need info about your general location, aspect of the space, climate and soil etc. The area beside walls is often much drier, especially if it's sizeable, because of the rain shadow. The size of the space is also important, but if it's a conifer hedge you have, it's probably taking up a lot of space, so replacing that, and then adding some attractive plants for you to look at is probably the best approach, with some really thorny stuff at the outside to help deter nonsense. Pyracantha, Mahonia, Berberis etc. You can let them grow out over the wall too, which can help deter the 'throwing over' brigade.
Pleached trees are a very expensive solution, and need a lot of work to establish, so just bear that in mind.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Thanks everyone for all your messages, much appreciated! Sorry to all those reliving their own versions of this.
Here's a photo to help understand what I have to play with:
My friend told me those trees are conifer trees but now I'm not sure if they are?
Our garden is west facing. It's quite shaded in the morning but gets more sun in the afternoon. However there's trees all around the borders (which I mostly like) so it's only really the other side (opposite what's in the photo) that gets more sun. So this wall doesn't really ever get direct sunlight currently.
I was wondering about cost too. Will have to do the best I can I spose! Anything fast growing would be preferable but want to get going with it so that I don't have to wait even longer.
I've seen others with climbers that completely cover the outer side of their fence and are very high! Making it almost impossible to throw litter over it. Would love to explore that. Would that not need some trellis to support it too though? And would that risk the fence falling over? Our fence isn't too bad currently but definitely not the most stable fence and ideally don't want to have to replace it due to cost.
It is a total pain when other human beings are so thoughtless, so I sympathise 🤗. I had a thought that maybe some netting, attached to vertical battens, might work, or a long pergola in your garden, against the wall, with netting incorporated between the fence and pergola. Maybe a carpenter could attach battens to your fences and then hammer in netting. This would be at above fence height, to catch rubbish and if the netting was angled back towards the street, the rubbish might fall back to the street too. Not a job I could do myself, but would have thought a carpenter or handy person could!
Where's the wall you mentioned? I'm confused now - not that it would be difficult! There's certainly conifer in there, along with other stuff - possibly laurel, but are they [the laurels] in someone else's garden and not yours, or is that an access road/lane and they're in there?
There are rules/regs about the permitted heights of fences when it's a boundary between neighbours, and/or at a roadside, so you can't easily just add something to the height. That could be a lot of bother waiting to happen. What you can do is add another screen to the inside of the existing boundary fence, and that can be higher. However, the conifers are still a problem, so you'd either have to get them taken out, which could be costly [you'd have to make inquiries locally] or you could get them removed apart from the main trunks, keep them at a round 8 or 9 feet, and attach battening or trellis [might need an extra post or two] to the inside of the trunks, and grow climbers to screen it all off. Unfortunately, they'll tend to grow towards the light, so won't really grow out to the other side so readily. You'd have to tie them in to get that effect, but it's worth trying. The ground where the conifers have been will create a problem though, because they soak up all the moisture and goodness, hence my query about your climate and soil. That ground will need a lot of help to improve it, and that's always worth doing so that anything new has a chance of thriving. The fact that the grass isn't growing gives you a clue to that - dry shade is always harder to deal with. Without the conifers though, it makes it much easier to put a selection of plants in which will be more attractive, and will help avoid the litter louts.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Very helpful thanks! To clarify (sorry bad use of the word "wall" from me): What you see in the photo is all our garden and our fence. On the other side of that fence is the footpath with a bike path (it's not a proper road so cars can't go down it).
What should I do to help the soil? If I prune the trees myself asap that should help it get access to some rain water?
Where's the wall you mentioned? I'm confused now - not that it would be difficult! There's certainly conifer in there, along with other stuff - possibly laurel, but are they [the laurels] in someone else's garden and not yours, or is that an access road/lane and they're in there?
There are rules/regs about the permitted heights of fences when it's a boundary between neighbours, and/or at a roadside, so you can't easily just add something to the height. That could be a lot of bother waiting to happen. What you can do is add another screen to the inside of the existing boundary fence, and that can be higher. However, the conifers are still a problem, so you'd either have to get them taken out, which could be costly [you'd have to make inquiries locally] or you could get them removed apart from the main trunks, keep them at a round 8 or 9 feet, and attach battening or trellis [might need an extra post or two] to the inside of the trunks, and grow climbers to screen it all off. Unfortunately, they'll tend to grow towards the light, so won't really grow out to the other side so readily. You'd have to tie them in to get that effect, but it's worth trying. The ground where the conifers have been will create a problem though, because they soak up all the moisture and goodness, hence my query about your climate and soil. That ground will need a lot of help to improve it, and that's always worth doing so that anything new has a chance of thriving. The fact that the grass isn't growing gives you a clue to that - dry shade is always harder to deal with. Without the conifers though, it makes it much easier to put a selection of plants in which will be more attractive, and will help avoid the litter louts.
I can't see that you'd be able to prune those conifers successfully yourself. That will need people with the right equipment - chainsaws etc. They're big. You also can't prune them back and get new growth, because hardly any of them produce new growth once you cut back into brown wood. It's difficult to see them properly though from the photo. It's not as simple as doing some pruning to allow rain in either - you'd need to be in a consistently wet part of the country for enough rain to get in. It's quite difficult for planting to flourish below existing conifers without really good rainfall that can penetrate the canopy. While they're alive, they'll draw huge amounts of moisture from the soil too, which makes it hard to establish new planting and keeping it thriving. The way to improve soil is to add loads of organic matter - rotted manure, compost, leaf mould [you're unlikely to have that ] and even decent topsoil in that sort of situation.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Posts
I'll probably be best off just taking a sledgehammer to the strimmer. Thus I should be able to put it in a black sack, for next week.
I'm a dab hand at wielding a sledgehammer!!
@ajgisme - if you can give us a photo of the site, we might be able to suggest suitable planting - and there's plenty of options, but we'd also need info about your general location, aspect of the space, climate and soil etc. The area beside walls is often much drier, especially if it's sizeable, because of the rain shadow.
The size of the space is also important, but if it's a conifer hedge you have, it's probably taking up a lot of space, so replacing that, and then adding some attractive plants for you to look at is probably the best approach, with some really thorny stuff at the outside to help deter nonsense. Pyracantha, Mahonia, Berberis etc. You can let them grow out over the wall too, which can help deter the 'throwing over' brigade.
Pleached trees are a very expensive solution, and need a lot of work to establish, so just bear that in mind.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Here's a photo to help understand what I have to play with:
My friend told me those trees are conifer trees but now I'm not sure if they are?
Our garden is west facing. It's quite shaded in the morning but gets more sun in the afternoon. However there's trees all around the borders (which I mostly like) so it's only really the other side (opposite what's in the photo) that gets more sun. So this wall doesn't really ever get direct sunlight currently.
I was wondering about cost too. Will have to do the best I can I spose!
Anything fast growing would be preferable but want to get going with it so that I don't have to wait even longer.
I've seen others with climbers that completely cover the outer side of their fence and are very high! Making it almost impossible to throw litter over it. Would love to explore that. Would that not need some trellis to support it too though? And would that risk the fence falling over? Our fence isn't too bad currently but definitely not the most stable fence and ideally don't want to have to replace it due to cost.
The netting I was thinking of: https://www.scotplantsdirect.co.uk/growing-needs/support-protection/windbreak-shade-netting/shade-netting-1mx50m.html
There's certainly conifer in there, along with other stuff - possibly laurel, but are they [the laurels] in someone else's garden and not yours, or is that an access road/lane and they're in there?
There are rules/regs about the permitted heights of fences when it's a boundary between neighbours, and/or at a roadside, so you can't easily just add something to the height. That could be a lot of bother waiting to happen.
What you can do is add another screen to the inside of the existing boundary fence, and that can be higher. However, the conifers are still a problem, so you'd either have to get them taken out, which could be costly [you'd have to make inquiries locally] or you could get them removed apart from the main trunks, keep them at a round 8 or 9 feet, and attach battening or trellis [might need an extra post or two] to the inside of the trunks, and grow climbers to screen it all off. Unfortunately, they'll tend to grow towards the light, so won't really grow out to the other side so readily. You'd have to tie them in to get that effect, but it's worth trying.
The ground where the conifers have been will create a problem though, because they soak up all the moisture and goodness, hence my query about your climate and soil. That ground will need a lot of help to improve it, and that's always worth doing so that anything new has a chance of thriving. The fact that the grass isn't growing gives you a clue to that - dry shade is always harder to deal with.
Without the conifers though, it makes it much easier to put a selection of plants in which will be more attractive, and will help avoid the litter louts.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
To clarify (sorry bad use of the word "wall" from me): What you see in the photo is all our garden and our fence. On the other side of that fence is the footpath with a bike path (it's not a proper road so cars can't go down it).
What should I do to help the soil? If I prune the trees myself asap that should help it get access to some rain water?
You also can't prune them back and get new growth, because hardly any of them produce new growth once you cut back into brown wood. It's difficult to see them properly though from the photo.
It's not as simple as doing some pruning to allow rain in either - you'd need to be in a consistently wet part of the country for enough rain to get in. It's quite difficult for planting to flourish below existing conifers without really good rainfall that can penetrate the canopy. While they're alive, they'll draw huge amounts of moisture from the soil too, which makes it hard to establish new planting and keeping it thriving.
The way to improve soil is to add loads of organic matter - rotted manure, compost, leaf mould [you're unlikely to have that ] and even decent topsoil in that sort of situation.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...