Leyland cypress hedge

I_have_spoken

At my last house, neighbour cut the eight conifers that went around their front garden, just sheared them across at 5 foot. You could still see the dead tops and lopped stems years later

phoebe1989seb

WeAreGhosts wrote: »

oh wonderful. i dont mind it really, it is nicer than a fence, but it costs a lot of to have it pruned.
neighbours said they wanted it to be 'neat'. not sure i have ever met anyone who likes looking at 50ft of bare, dead wood. all the other houses have lush green, thick hedges and they keep chopping loads off so it is now really skinny. got holes in it too which i am not happy about as it doesnt stop the noise as much as it did and we can see straight through.

At our last (detached) house we had neighbours that must have enjoyed looking at something similar. We had a 30+' cypress tree in our drive (planted by a previous owner to us) that very slightly overhung their drive and, having asked us to remove it completely (we declined as it was an area otherwise lacking in lush green foliage), they had a *tree surgeon* slash it back to the bare wood their side.......the result being laughable from their perspective.

Imagine a 35' tree literally sliced vertically through the centre - it looked horrendous - but we remained determined to keep what was left as it not only shielded the view of their ugly 80s bungalow from our period house, but softened the landscape too.....

They were odd neighbours though as they were often to be seen on their drive hoovering up the fallen pine needles, lol!

You have my sympathies OP

moneyistooshorttomention

Errrmm...perhaps I should explain the reasoning (as far as I can see) of why neighbours will trim something exactly to the inch back to a boundary, even though it then looks ugly in the process.

It isn't (just) about hoping it will then be removed. It is also about other people being able to see "Look what next door have planted in their garden:eek:". The fact of the trimming right back to boundary makes it very plain that the trimmer has thought "Eeek...leylandii" or "Eeek...coming over into someone else's space" or some other sort of "Eek" and is a way of putting up a virtual sign of "Here be :eek: Neighbour". It's a sort of "signpost".

When I spotted the trimmed right down the middle row of leylandii all along the boundary line between two neighbours I instantly felt wary of ever having to knock on the door of the leylandii owners about anything ever and would have avoided that house if I had been doing anything like door-to-door canvassing if I possibly could (as I would have worried I might have been in for a ":( reception" to whatever query I had had, even though I would have been a stranger to them).

Don't know if the leylandii owners realised they might be putting some people off them with the way that hedge was, but it soon got removed.

Don't shoot the messenger - just explaining the thinking behind this.:)

Davesnave

Our neighbour behind planted leylandii in 1985. We could see they would eventually ruin our garden, but we wanted to move anyway.

As luck would have it, we bought our friends' house, semi-detached to the leylandii owning neighbour, and on his sunny side!

We then learned why the leylands were going in, together with bamboo and supplemented by the original orchard trees. The neighbour's partner, who was extremely attractive, liked to sunbathe in a bikini, and there was a teenage bird-spotting neighbour nearby with binoculars. Potentially, there were others too.

Years passed and the attractive lady left the neighbour, but the trees kept growing. Our old garden disappeared from view. None of this bothered us, as we were on the sunny side.:p

We left that house some years ago. The neighbour, then in his 60s still had girlfriends, but they were not up for sunbathing, bikini-clad, or otherwise. The trees were still there, their purpose probably long-forgotten.

I must say he was a very nice neighbour in all other respects; always quiet and thoughtful. Never had any problem.

I don't think it's easy to read others' minds.

moneyistooshorttomention

That bikini definitely sounds like the reason there Dave, as you say. Many of us have been brought up knowing our gardens are private and will duly wonder what to do about them if any future garden turns out not to be. I've done my own "get more privacy" stuff here, but of a much more "friendly" nature than leylandii.

As you say, reading others minds may not necessarily work. I've only just had a (non garden-related) cultural difference here explained to me in the last week. I realised there was this difference, checked it out with an English friend (who confirmed she had noticed it out too) and found the reasoning behind it was totally different to what I had assumed it was (ie when a local explained to me). :cool:

WeAreGhosts

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Errrmm...perhaps I should explain the reasoning (as far as I can see) of why neighbours will trim something exactly to the inch back to a boundary, even though it then looks ugly in the process.

It isn't (just) about hoping it will then be removed. It is also about other people being able to see "Look what next door have planted in their garden:eek:". The fact of the trimming right back to boundary makes it very plain that the trimmer has thought "Eeek...leylandii" or "Eeek...coming over into someone else's space" or some other sort of "Eek" and is a way of putting up a virtual sign of "Here be :eek: Neighbour". It's a sort of "signpost".

When I spotted the trimmed right down the middle row of leylandii all along the boundary line between two neighbours I instantly felt wary of ever having to knock on the door of the leylandii owners about anything ever and would have avoided that house if I had been doing anything like door-to-door canvassing if I possibly could (as I would have worried I might have been in for a ":( reception" to whatever query I had had, even though I would have been a stranger to them).

Don't know if the leylandii owners realised they might be putting some people off them with the way that hedge was, but it soon got removed.

Don't shoot the messenger - just explaining the thinking behind this.:)

well, that is a new one on me.

the hedge was put in by the developer forty years ago. every house has one round here. all the hedges are shared between neighbours

we get plenty of canvassers - no problems there!

cyclonebri1

WeAreGhosts wrote: »

well, that is a new one on me.

the hedge was put in by the developer forty years ago. every house has one round here. all the hedges are shared between neighbours

we get plenty of canvassers - no problems there!

But now we are talking my problem:rotfl::rotfl:

WeAreGhosts

they have been back out there today giving it another trim cos it will "let more light into the garden"

garden is quite a decent size, and south facing. not sure how much light they want! our side of the hedge doesnt cast shade onto our garden at all.

madness