trees in neighbours gardens

skinback69

hi
just wondering if their was any type of law restricting the growth of trees in peoples gardens you see my next door neighbours have got massive trees in their garden what blocks most the sun in my garden even though it is south facing i know you can cut all the branches that come into your garden and throw them back but is there anything else you can do

olias

No, you have no 'right to light'

Olias

sheslookinhot

Sounds like the trees were there before the houses were built.

Becles

I don't think there is anything you can do - sorry.

I know how you feel. When I moved here 13 years ago, my neighbour had a small cherry tree against the fence. Our garden was neglected so I worked hard to make it nice and laid new lawns, put shrubs in and built a patio at the bottom of the garden where we enjoyed many meals and general relaxing in the sun.

The neighbour has never bothered getting the tree pruned or done any sort of maintenance on it. It's now taller than the house, has a spread of around 5 metres and it blocks all the sunlight into our garden.

The patio never gets any sun at all, the sun loving shrubs have all died and I'm fighting a losing battle with moss on the patio and lawn.

It's really frustrating as I love my garden and I love being ourdoors, but the neighbour doesn't bother at all with his garden. He'll not have the tree cut down as it's not causing him any problems.

While it would be a lovely tree if it was growing in a wood or other open space, it's not really a suitable tree to grow in a back garden.

ormus

you are allowed to cut/prune any parts inside your property.
you are not allowed to keep any fruit. youve got to give any back to them!

SailorSam

If your neighbour refuses to prune it to a decent size one thing that you could do, if you were digging in your own garden and found some large roots that you knew were not from any of your own plants, soak them in a strong weedkiller, and keep repeating doing it, see what happens,
Not very nice i know but if you don't get on. People next door will just think it has died.

jonesjw

SailorSam wrote: »

If your neighbour refuses to prune it to a decent size one thing that you could do, if you were digging in your own garden and found some large roots that you knew were not from any of your own plants, soak them in a strong weedkiller, and keep repeating doing it, see what happens,
Not very nice i know but if you don't get on. People next door will just think it has died.

This is probably illegal, but will be difficult to prove if they don't see you doing it.
Could be a good one to try when they go on holiday.
Drilling the roots & pouring in the most toxic weed killer you can find might help.
Brushwood killer?

stationaryace

my parents have the same problem with the house behind theirs. after talks with the neighbour in question it was agreed the tree would come down and the costs would be shared equally but after a few months when my parents went to chase it up the house had been sold and had to start from scratch with less agreeable people. yes, they should have chased it up and the old neighbour was probably only so agreeable as he knew he was selling

we've temporarily moved in to the house and one route we're going to explore is to do with the size of the tree- it's very tall with a thick trunk and my mum is concerned that should we get harsh winter the tree may fall down and seriously damage the roof. we haven't looked into this yet so may be talking rubbish :rolleyes:

tempted to gather up all the fallen leaves in a bag and to leave a present on his doorstep...

jenhug

i'm on the other side of this, i have a tall tree, been there since before we lived here, neighbour saw it being planted close to boundary but never raised objection to siting, it grew tall, its at a mid point of the length of garden, our gardens are raised so its taller than house. He asked us to cut back a specific branch, which we did and also we took out about a third to a half of its height.
18 months on and he is complaining again. I don't really want to remove it. He says its blocking his light, but the sun does not come round that far until about 6pm and he has a tree behind it in his garden which is contibuting.
We paid for a tree surgeon to cut back because of the height etc.
Do we have to cut it back again?