Neighbours causing such a fuss about ivy! Really?

Tell them “It’s our fence and we like it. We keep it under control from our side. Your side is up to you.”

Show us the ivy and we might be able to judge better. Personally hate the stuff

It absolutely destroys walls. And it maybe good for wildlife but that includes rats, for whom it’s makes the perfect environment to climb, nest and hide on the way to the roof.

You must be getting ivy confused with something else.

YANBU. I don’t understand Mumsnet sometimes. It’s on your fence - not damaging their fence or worse, any brickwork. You cut it back when asked (your neighbours are incredibly rude to call you lazy, so I wouldn’t hurry to do so again in future!). They are obviously welcome to cut anything that does come over to their side. There are far worse neighbour annoyances than ivy on a fence -your neighbours would love my garden, it hasn’t been maintained in years apart from some basic lawn mowing 🤣

It's awful at the moment. I have cut ours back three times already this summer and the bastard stuff grows back immediately. It's laughing at me. It's completely unaffected by any form of extreme weather and ruins anything it's climbing up. I would ask them to show me what they were concerned about tbh if you have cut it back already. Sounds like they are fixating on it.

@kistanbul It’s none of that! Ivy roots can cause issues in drains and can separate mortar between bricks and damage foundations. It’s got aerial roots too and they go everywhere. The roots grow from the stems and it’s how the plant climbs but they damage what it clings to. No one is wrong or mistaken except you. As it’s evergreen it’s poor for birds and doesn’t have fruit birds like.

Some extreme reactions on here!
I have Ivy growing on a fence in my alleyway thats been there ever since we moved in. I have not had a problem with it. I just cut it back every few months. The fence has been there for about 10 years and is still solid. I also have some Ivy in the front garden (coming from the neighbours side) and do the same, a good prune a few times a year sorts it out.

I think the type of fence makes a difference - those cheap slatted fences can’t deal with anything growing on them really.

I think the issue is when people don’t maintain their gardens and let plants grown rampant.

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My neighbours buddleias have just broken two fences and they’re not doing anything about it despite being updated on steady damage.

I have sympathy for your neighbours, it’s annoying when your neighbours weeds encroach in your garden.

YANBU OP but your neighbours are. I had, until I sold up earlier this year the neighbour from hell. He blocked our legal access, so we had to take him to court to enforce it, regularly used power tools at 6am outside on a Sunday, put a basketball hoop 4 inches from our house wall and spent 2 hours a day throwing balls at our living room wall and drilled holes in our detached house wall to hang a gate from. You get the picture.

Anyway the only thing he could find to complain about with us was some ivy. We had the ivy growing on our side of a mutual boundary wall and he basically never stopped going on about it. Despite all the shit things he did to us and put us through, this ivy was apparently the worst thing anyone could ever do to a neighbour.

In the end we got our lawyer to write to him advising that up to the midline of the top of the mutual wall was ours and our ivy had every right to be there. Anything that went over that midpoint into his side was fair game for him to cut back to said midline. There was legally no onus on us to stop the ivy going into his bit or to cut it back on his side ourselves.

I realise you have a fence rather than a wall and the ivy is poking through in parts but I'd have thought the legal principle is the same and your neighbour can just cut any bits that escape through to his side back.

I think in these cases it is often not really about the stated issue at all but is all some sort of power struggle and one upmanship. Your neighbour has no right to be speaking to you like that and is a dick. So sorry to hear of someone else with an unreasonable neighbour. My mental health and sleep have improved so much since I moved.

Bamboo plants can be a big deal. Keep an eye on it spreading into your garden.

Are people getting ivy confused with something else? It doesn’t destroy walls and it isn’t invasive. It’s great for wildlife and looks beautiful.

Ivy is a massive menace. I moved into a house covered in it and the damage it can do to the structural integrity of a property is really quite shocking. It causes damp and attracts rodents and can wipe £££ off your house price. I’m surprised anyone likes it.
We routinely have to remove it , even since the big removal, as once it roots in walls etc it’s a nightmare and grows so fast.
My neighbour hates ours and I’m not surprised , I deal with it immediately if I see any little shoots heading towards her side, as she’s elderly and simply wouldn’t be able to physically manage removing it herself , especially if it climbs high.

YABU. We've literally just spent £4k replacing mature wonderful ivy Bush with a fence because newish neighbours did fuck all to maintain it their side from the moment they moved in. It was a shared bush deeds aren't clear as to whose side it belongs to but previous neighbours had always kept on top of it on their side until this neighbour came along..he would never have got around to sorting it out so we sucked it up and put a nice fence in as the ivy bush had collapsed and there was nolonger any privacy. To add insult to injury he has uncontrolled bindweed on their side which is already creeping through to our side through the fence. I think your neighbour is perhaps being a bit petty op however I'm on their side.. you should keep an eye on the ivy as some is really fast growing and will bugger your fence. I love ivy and miss my ivy bush but lazy neighbour didn't maintain it on his side then wondered why it collapsed onto his side 😕

My neighbours' ivy completely destroyed our fences, just cut it back

I had a variegated ivy growing up the side of my house; I bought it for 40p from a school summer fair years ago. It not only lifted the tiles on the gable end of the house when it reached the roof, but also bent the gas pipe on the way up. We chopped it down and managed to pull off big patches of render in the process; t was an expensive pot of ivy! It took a tree stump killer chemical to finally kill it off. Team Neighbour here.

My username has nothing to do with this thread I promise. 🤣

It sounds like you are doing your best to maintain it.
Some people just like to have something to moan about.

@Flossflower it’s honestly brilliant. I had some coming through and it seems to break the bonds which stick to the fence and then they peel
off really easily x

Just cut the ivy to the root and keep maintaining it at that level weekly.

It their plants are bothering you, ask them to cut them back.

It is better to maintain a good relationship with neighbours.

Over time ivy is very destructive of whatever it clings to. I used to love ivy, the way it created a green surface on boring brick or wooden fences....till I realised that it grows through the surface as well as on top of it causing loads of damage. Was considering viewing a house recently but when I saw it had ivy covering a lot of the front brickwork I wouldn't have touched it with a bargepole. I removed some from my outside brickwork many years ago, luckily before it penetrated the pointing, but marks the suckers left are still there.

Ivy is horrendous.

This. It’s bloody awful and invasive and unless you find the source and kill it at the root if suffocates and kills your trees and trashes your brickwork.

Ivy is a massive PITA. You having SEN children is completely irrelevant here; Yabu.