Neighbours and overhanging plants
The neighbour down the far end of our garden has started cutting back the privet hedge on her side of her fence and chucking it back over the hedge to my side of the garden...
The hedge is currently about 4 ft tall and when we were in the process of buying the property she sent a letter to the previous owners saying that the hedge had to be removed as she wanted to put a new fence up. It is only a mesh kind of fence, not panels. She also has a laminated note on there saying it is the property of blah blah blah and it is a criminal offence of the wildlife and countryside act to do anything to the fence.
That is fine, however I know she has a right to give me back the cuttings but do people really do this. She has planted a lot of trees and a beech hedge on her side, so i'm looking forward to giving her back her branches when they over hang our side.
I wouldn't be so annoyed if i wasn't doing anything with that part of the garden, but I'm working on trying to get it into a lovely woodland garden down there. Her garden is a bombsite, she never mows the lawn or does anything (apart from cutting my hedge, it would seem) all in the name of wildlife. I too have a wildlife friendly garden but it can still look neat.
Talk me down before I go and knock on her door... My garden is my passion, i don't like people messing with it. I doubt I'm the only one here.
Posts
If she's doing that she's actually complying with the law, but as for her assertions they're tosh. Privet is a good hedge for some nesting birds, so removing it would be detrimental for wildlife. She can put a fence up on her side without removing the hedge, not beneficial to wildlife. I think you just have a bad neighbour.
I have bad neighbour so I make my garden as colourful and as wildlife friendly as possible,(his wife nags him to do more with his garden, brilliant revenge to hear the arguments). As long as you know your'e doing the right thing ignore her and put her garden to shame, it really is the best revenge.
One of those cases where most of the problems would be solved if people would just get on. There are tons of websites covering the legislation.
At the bottom of it all, yes she has the right to 'give you back' the cuttings. They are yours and legally it is your responsibility to dispose of them.
In practice most people would not throw them into their neighbours garden, they just dispose of them on behalf of the neighbour, assuming this is what they would like them to do.
If she likes wildlife, perhaps she should pile them up to make a habitat pile? I do that or shred them for the compost.
PS I get nothing apart from compliments about my wildlife garden from neighbours. It is not tidy in the traditional sense, but it is no accident either.
Oh dear peanut, terrible! I do sympathise, got to be nothing worse - what horrid people are out there
Oh dear, she sounds like a total PITA
Yes, by law the hedge trimmings are yours so she is sticking to the letter (rather than the spirit) of the law in chucking them back to you.
Can I suggest you thank her hugely and intensely for throwing them back to you as you are using them to make a hibernaculum for the hedgehogs.
With any luck she'll be so jealous of you having hedgehogs (whether you have any or not
) that she'll keep them to make her own hibernaculum (for hedgehogs, not for her ).
Privet flowers are also a wonderful nectar source for beneficial insects, so you could always allow your hedge to grow up to say 7 or 8 feet tall so that it will flower and produce berries too. All in the name of wildlife too
- she'd be 'hoist with her own petard' (love that saying 
). You could put a sign up explaining 
And keep smiling at her - she'll think she's missing something
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Nothing better than beating people at their own game as they say Dove.
With a bit of clever habitat creation, any of us can get more wildlife using a garden than a neighbour who has just left a garden to become overgrown. It also allows other areas to be perfectly manicured if we choose too, then you get the real benefits of frogs and toads keeping down the slugs, birds visiting all day, it is not hard to do.
One next door neighbour at our last house was a keen birdwatcher - his garden was full of tall overgrown shrubs full of nesting birds - we didn't have to have nesting sites in our tiny garden but we got the benefit of watching all the birds in our birdbath, on our feeders and taking the aphids from our roses.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
We only have one tree in our entire garden now. That is coppiced to a stump.
Plenty of birds staging off the neighbour's trees. They don't do much but let things grow and grow. Fine by me, I prefer the light getting in.
Neighbour can cut back anything over the boundary line. They must offer up the cuttings and if they aren't wanted the neighbour is responsible for disposal. Throwing them over the fence is not offering them back nor is it legal disposal, it's a passive-aggressive tipping.
My understanding is that she has the right to cut what overhangs, but she must " offer" the cuttings back. You have the right to refuse. She has no right to chuck it over the fence.