I'm devastated, any advice please ?

Leif

kegg wrote: »

I wouldn't want to be living next door to you either if you cant see why a hedge that size is inappropriate.

BTW you wouldn't need to go onto your soil to poison it with salt. It could be poured on their boundary and the root system would soak it up. Might take a bit longer than if you could pour it directly on the roots but you would have the same end result.

The OP has repeatedly pointed out that the neighbour has never objected to the hedge, or requested that it be reduced in height. So I don't think you can make out that she is uncaring or antisocial. If such a hedge did not blot out the sun, then I would not object to one along my boundary. It would have advantages.

I have a neighbour who has a raised deck next to the 2m fence, thereby rendering the fence useless since they sit on the decking looking over my garden. I could get stroppy (with no legal justification) but it's better to deal with these things in the legal and neighbourly manner. I know they mean no ill will, and they are pleasant people.

meer53

wellused wrote: »

If your neighbour took the law into their own hands by going out of the way to cut a hedge down then I am guessing that it was inconveniencing them to a great extent.

I have explained, more than once, that the person who was asked to cut the hedge was asked to cut off 12" ONLY by my neighbour. He decided to cut off 5' instead. I have no idea why.

The issue is (i'll explain it again) that if they'd spoken to me BEFORE cutting the hedge, they would have discovered that my gardener is coming tomorrow to cut 2' off the entire hedge.

In summary, before deciding to cut your neighbours hedge, please do the decent thing and SPEAK TO THEM.

wellused

So as the op has repeatedly pointed out that the neighbour has never complained so why would they go out of their way to personally cut the hedge down, this sounds as if there is more to this story than meets the eye?

meer53

wellused wrote: »

So as the op has repeatedly pointed out that the neighbour has never complained so why would they go out of their way to personally cut the hedge down, this sounds as if there is more to this story than meets the eye?

As the neighbour refused to open the door when i went round on Saturday and she refused to discuss it with the Police, in fact the PC told me she was particularly rude to him and refused to discuss anything with him either, i have no idea at all why she has arranged for the hedge to be cut.

I'm having to negotiate with her daughter at the moment who is very helpful, and has apologised for her mothers behaviour, she did say that her mother can be very opinionated and rude at times so i tend to think that she's just that type of person. I've spoken to another neighbour today who has said that she is known to be rude and outspoken so i just think i've been unlucky and will have to chalk this one down to experience.

The hedge is down now, she can't do any more damage.

Leif

meer53 wrote: »

As the neighbour refused to open the door when i went round on Saturday and she refused to discuss it with the Police, in fact the PC told me she was particularly rude to him and refused to discuss anything with him either, i have no idea at all why she has arranged for the hedge to be cut.

I'm having to negotiate with her daughter at the moment who is very helpful, and has apologised for her mothers behaviour, she did say that her mother can be very opinionated and rude at times so i tend to think that she's just that type of person. I've spoken to another neighbour today who has said that she is known to be rude and outspoken so i just think i've been unlucky and will have to chalk this one down to experience.

The hedge is down now, she can't do any more damage.

I do recommend you get this sorted i.e. have the neighbour pay compensation. Just putting it down to experience could encourage her to destroy whatever else you plant. Sorry if I am saying the blooming obvious.

System

To be honest, i'd get her to pay for a profession tree surgeon (or whatever they call them) to come and trim the hedge so that its all level. Maybe also trim the rest of the sides down a bit so the chunk missing out of the middle doesnt look so obvious. Its no consolation to you i know.

Maybe with the long arm of the law behind you and her being out of pocket for her mindless act she will think twice before damaging someone elses property just because she just didnt like it.

meer53

Leif wrote: »

I do recommend you get this sorted i.e. have the neighbour pay compensation. Just putting it down to experience could encourage her to destroy whatever else you plant. Sorry if I am saying the blooming obvious.

I'm giving them time to remove all the trees that are currently in my garden (they havent made any attempt to move them today) and once they're gone i will check on how the hedge recovers. Her daughter did say that they would pay for any new trees that may be needed but obviously this might not become apparent for a while yet.

emiff6

The hedge will recover, just so long as you get the hose on it and give it a good soak.

Lleylandeii reckon to grow 3 feet a year, so if every year you have 2 feet trimmed off, then is the hedge not increasing in height every year......?

valk_scot

meer53 wrote: »

Okay folks !

who comes every two weeks to keep things in order. I'm not
To Valk_scot, you might be making a huge assumption here, which is a very dangerous thing to do. I am not an intimidating bloke with a deep voice. I'm a single mum with 2 kids.

No, not at all. I know you're female, you've mentioned it.

Lotus-eater

juliebunny wrote: »

Excuse me for somewhat sidetracking this thread but to respond to this - the people turned out to be obnoxious little gits who we decided we would not inflict on the lovely neighbours who had cared for our mum through some very hard times.

Some things are more important in life than money.

To get back on track - nice garden OP. Mine is the size of a postage stamp!! I long for a bigger garden!

Your original reason you posted was about the hedges, not because they are obnoxious gits, sorry, you change your story, you might get another answer.

Your garden is the size of a postage stamp? The neighbours garden in this story is only 5 metres long, at the end is a huge wall of green conifer, which as others have pointed out, means nothing else will grow and regardless of garden aspect, will be overwhelming and cut down the amount of light into the garden.

As has been said by almost everyone, what the neighbour did by cutting the hedge without asking, is wrong, to do anything without talking, is wrong.
But you still can't get away from the fact, that the OP's house is a long way from the hedge, others are not, she might not have given a thought to the problems it may create, but others did.
Yes they did wrong by letting it ferment within themselves and not talking to the OP and they shouldn't have told their SIL to cut some off it and he (apparently) shouldn't have cut more than asked to do.

The OP should now talk to all of her neighbours that the hedge butts onto and ask what they really think of it. They could cut the whole hedge down to this size and it would make no difference to them anyway, the privacy is still the same, it just would make it nicer for the others.