To be annoyed with neighbour re fence

Our neighbour has a laurel hedge and it's cut back hard twice a year and comes back absolutely fine. I would cut your side back hard to your boundary line and put up a fence on your side. It is your responsibility to stop your dog from going into your neighbours garden.

We had this scenario with the only difference being that it was our hedge that the neighbour massacred, leaving huge gaps so my dog could get through!
Cue much screaming and shouting from them.
Did the chicken wire thing but we eventually moved.
Life is too short.
They were awful people anyway.

This is exactly what we did. We now have a dog proof garden and a lovely hedge

But it's your responsibility to safeguard your children, not your neighbour's.

I’ve done similar with my boundary hedge. I’ve got a very neglected “country hedge” - mixed planting, very gappy. It’s gradually thickening up where I’ve taken the height down/trimmed.

i recommend using a rigid, galvanised grid type wire with galvanised posts. Maintenance free. Trim back the hedge and fit the fencing. The laurel will grow back and cover the fence. Chicken wire is too ‘loose’ - dogs can force open the wire and get through.

Perfect 👌

You can cut any parts of the hedge which extend into your property. I would suggest warning him that you intend to do it out of courtesy.

However, given that you don't currently have use of the 3ft of your garden that his hedge grows over, I would suggest cutting back moderately and putting in chicken wire as suggested which will be unnoticeable as the hedge grows but will keep your dog in,

You can't damage laurel - it will survive nuclear holocaust, along with the cockroaches.

We have a laurel hedge between us and NDN, and we cut it back drastically on our side last year, to bare trunks, because we were losing so much garden to it. It is already sprouting back and filling in any gaps left, but at least we have control over it now.

I wouldn't worry about inconveniencing him. He's not bothered about inconveniencing you, so cut it back to the boundary line and put your fence up. He's made it clear he doesn't want your dog in his garden so what else are you supposed to do? If there's trunk on your land then I guess technically it's yours. He's put you in this position so you having to find a solution that works for you
Don't feel bad about what you do with your own land. He doesn't.

Yanbu. I have a dickhead neighbour and had to lose 1ft of my garden as they wouldn't put a fence up.

My kids could have literally walked into their garden and out their unsecured back gate into the street if they'd wanted to.

Yabu to be shocked that a new owner cut their hedge back, you knew it could happen and that it’s your job to keep your dog secure. You should have always done something your side as they could and have at any point remove or cut their hedge.

I would use something more substantial that chicken wire, perhaps this sort of mesh. (It will support itself much better than chicken wire.) Hope this link works...

https://www.sure-green.com/wire-panel-8ft-4ft-12-gauge.html?mh_matchtype=&mh_keyword=&mh_adgroupid=&mh_network=x&mh_campaignid=22826147939&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22820392791&gclid=EAIaIQobChMImNa53NOCjwMV7oZQBh1ceBhlEAQYASABEgJblfD_BwE

We have an odd shaped garden with a huge perimeter bordered by bushes. We used green, square wire mesh around the garden to keep the dog in. It is great. It sort of fades into the background and then the bushes grow through.

We put in an electronic border for our dog, who loves to get into neighbours gardens. You dig a small tunnel the length of the boundary and lay it down, the dog wears a collar that makes noises and warns him that he is getting close to it. if he goes over it he gets an electric shock. He never goes over it and happily lets us put his collar on when he wants to go into the garden. It works very well. We have similar hedges that would be impossible to seal.

YABU.

The neighbour has made his wishes clear, so just cut the laurel right up to the boundary line then install a fence.

My friend has something very similar but just used a chicken wire style fence.

You can get 6ft tall chicken wire on a 50m roll for about £65, then just need some posts to attach it to. The laurel will then grow back through it but you can then be sure of no gaps!

Digging the posts out is physical hard work but not too difficult. Plenty of YouTube videos on how to put secure fence posts in.

OP, I'd do the fence thing rather than the chicken wire, and would cut out small hedgehog-sized holes in the fence.

Hedgehogs might wander about and use that hedge to get from a to b - they wander miles in the night ,foraging. I think they've endangered, so they need all the help they can get.

No need to take out trunks, you can be very creative with fencing around trunks, or them poking through it. I’m surrounded by huge trees and hedges on all sides, most of them mine within the boundary, but along the back the poplar tree trunks straddle the boundary so we have wooden panels up to the trunks and then half circle wrought iron around them. Keeps the dog safely in.

What about electric poultry/sheep netting on your side of the hedge? Much cheaper than installing a permanent fence, easy to remove when the gaps in the hedge have filled in.

I would do the chicken wire thing.

It’s very unlikely it would kill the laurel. The stuff is indestructible. The harder you cut it back, the more it will bush out (so in theory neighbour has a shot himself in the foot 😅).

Tell him what you’re planning to do and why so you don’t fall out over it.

Remember not to do it until autumn because of birds nesting. Ideally it would be done in late winter, but the laurel won’t really care if you do it in autumn.

I had a similar but not identical situation. I put a series of 2ft high metal poles and chicken wire along the actual boundary with labels on ‘BOUNDARY’ so that was what neighbours saw from their garden through their newly thinned hedge. Then I put an attractive 3ft fence along against the hedge so it looked nice from my side with the laurel leaves peeping above the fence.
After all, as I said to my neighbours, it’s very important that the boundary is clearly marked in case you get confused and start maintaining my side 😁 we don’t want to cause you any extra work…
The hedge was soon allowed to thicken up again to disguise the chicken wire fence.

Cut it right right back. It might stress the plant enough that it dies anyway, if it does that's entirely his problem. I'd then put a metal chain link fence right against it, if the hedge doesn't die it may grow back through

That’s his problem if it’s his hedge but on your side though. Get a professional in to do it and cut it to your boundary.