To be FURIOUS that the new neighbours have chopped down our entire rose bush?!

[itstimeforchange]

Their garden backs onto ours and they have been tidying up the garden since moving in recently. I have just seen that they have cut down the entire wild rose bush at the bottom of our garden!! There is a (pathetic) wire fence and a few stalks are probably on their side, but they have clearly crossed the line literally and figuratively and chopped down the whole thing, most of which is at our side of two small concrete posts, so not even any excuse about knowing where the border is would work here. It was my favourite plant in the whole garden. I can't go round to speak to them right now as I have to go out, but I am so upset

[EnriqueTheRingBearingLizard]

Professional gardeners love to do a hard prune. I was taught how to prune roses by one, by using a big pair of hedge shears. The roses love it and come back much healthier and stronger. You'll be surprised, it'll have done it good. I now hack mine back cruelly and the growth is all the better for it.

Wild roses seem to spring up here from nothing. That's what they do.
Don't worry, it'll be fine. If you do feel anxious, put down some feed now and then mulch over the top.

[itstimeforchange]

CouldntMakeThisShitUp IF they put a fence further into their land I would not let them remove the original fence. I don't know much about adverse possession but the original border is staying put and I would hope that would avoid any issues.

Re. worst cutting offences the most terrible is still my dad. He and my DM have a woodland area with mainly pine and beech - she and I adore beech trees. There were, oh I dunno, maybe 8 young ish beech trees (average 15 years old maybe) scattered in the open spaces amongst the big trees. They were lovely and filled an otherwise empty, dull-coloured space.

He cut them all down.



(DM still hasn't got over it, years later)

[user1479335914]

I'm with you itstimeforachange , I love dandelions too, and am just now researching all the things you can do with them - dandelion root coffee for example, and one of James Wong's books has a bath oil you can make from the flowers, also wine ...

[AcrossthePond55]

Hacking out a LILAC!!!???!!!

My DH did the same with a beautiful Wisteria. I cried.

[Hekabe]

Oh I feel you OP- I was annoyed at DH hacking out our lilac. The brute. Thought the fence thing may be at the root (sorry) of it all, and perhaps an over zealous mistake.

I will say though that Emphasise is right - apparently there is a quote out there somewhere that says "get your worst enemy to prune your roses".

Next year you will have a flourish of buds following a hearty chop. Best of luck.

[CouldntMakeThisShitUp]

OP - the mum you spoke to will trample all over your boundary if you don't know your own legal position re the boundary.

You might not change your deeds - why would you?
However, if you allow them to move the concrete posts/your boundary, they or future owners may well be able to claim adverse possession due to the status quo.

[Flopjustwantscoffee]

It's completely unreasonable, but In support of what quite a few other people have said - we have a large rose bush in our garden and twice a year I cut it right back - it seems the more aggressively I do it the more exuberantly it comes back. SO depending on the time of year it normally flowers, you might not get flowers this year but long term it should be ok (or even better for the prune). You need to talk to them though to stop them doing it again just as it's about to flower next year, or deciding to dig it out/use weedkiller when they see they haven't killed it :)

[Jaxhog]

People are very strange about plants. We have a wild flower embankment opposite our houses, and some of our neighbours took it upon themselves to get their kids to plant bloody daffodils all over it. Don't get me wrong, I love a daffodil, but these are not native ones and will inhibit all the wild flowers. And they are everywhere.

[Jaxhog]

User, I'm with you. One of my favourites is a cowslip. We even dig them out of the lawn and plant them in the flower beds. Lovely.

[Jaxhog]

It's horrible. But, provided they didn't dig it up as well, they may have done you a favour. Roses really benefit from a hard prune, and come back better and stronger than before.

[itstimeforchange]

user1479335914 That is awful! Even if I didn't love nature I would be seriously peeved at that. As it is I can't abide any plants being killed. I even found myself being sympathetic to the beauty of dandelions the other day...

DMC

[DMCWelshCakes]

Roses will still be here after the Apocalypse. I've been trying to kill the spiky bastards in my garden for 5 years now and they won't bloody die!

I reckon they're in league with Dr Who and taught him all he knows about regeneration.

[user1479335914]

So sorry about your rose. People do seem to believe what they want to believe about things like boundaries. We have had several issues like this where I live (terraced house). Our new neighbour on one side put up a whole new fence on the boundary between us, involving taking ours down (no consultation or discussion) and removing our gate at the bottom of the garden . In the process all the bushes on that side of our garden were reduced to stumps, by workmen coming into our garden and cutting them down (no one spoke to us first!)
Unbelievable but they felt free to do it.
Another person in our small street had only lived here a month, and went out and chopped down most of the communal garden that we share with the other houses - no discussion with anyone first, and it still has not recovered.

[itstimeforchange]

I was never a fan of pruning mine, but nothing a good pair of gloves couldn't fix.

I've already got used to the horrendously ugly gap at the end of the garden, and feeling very little spite to the neighbours. But what you just said made me suddenly think, 'damn, I miss my roses.' I did indeed love them

[Bluntness100]

The thorns are a bugger. People who owned the house before us must have loved them though, there was loads of them.

[itstimeforchange]

They are spiky buggers, I'll give you that I've got at least 4 or 5 cuts just from tying up the fencing earlier, and I hardly touched the roses! Being that there's hardly anything left of them!

What was just a little bit satisfying was watching the two ladies having major trouble cutting up and trying to dispose of our ex-bush...

[Bluntness100]

I've never moved a rose bush, but the poster who said roses love a hard prune is right, I just complained to my husband about the one out the back and he said "yep they love getting cut back ,brings them on" . Didn't tell me that last year when he watched me cut it down.

Now worried about one out the front, cut that back to plant wisteria to climb up front of house in its place and now worried that will come back too.

Can you tell I am no fan of rose bushes,,😂

[itstimeforchange]

The slightly-moved fence idea was including leaving the original one in place so there was no doubt where the border is. Would this really cause problems in the future? Any new neighbours living there couldn't claim anything further than the original fence and I certainly don't care for gaining any land that's not rightfully ours -- the border is the border and that's that. (I'd just prefer not to have our border plants ruined.) I can't speak for new residents if we ever moved out but 1) unlikely we ever will, 2) we'd not be changing the deeds and 3) not really my problem...

It's mainly the roses that would suffer - one in particular is huge & I'd be surprised if we managed to dig it up at all, let alone do it without killing it. I'll have to do some googling and see how well they take to being moved.

[Allthewaves]

They need to concrete the posts in where the current posts are then put fence along their side of the post iykwim. Don't try and vary the boundary it could cause huge problems later

[JanetBrown2015]

They sound okay I suppose. I don't think it's a good idea in law (I am a lawyer) for anyone to put up a fence which is not exactly on a border. It leads to all kinds of problems later. Either there shoud be no new fence (it looks from the photos that the few concrete posts indicate the border so it is vital the border is not moved from there) or the new fence is put exactly on the existing border evcen if you have have to dig up the rose and replant it in front of the new fence on your side of the land. It is possible to grow lovely plants all over to cover a fence up and that might be the right idea here if they are determined to get a clearer boundary. i can see their point. I like neighbours totally obscured either with fence or evergeen trees with no holes in them.

[itstimeforchange]

Haha Bluntness I hope you're right!

[Bluntness100]

It will be back to the same size next year, they grow fast. I cut one down in our back garden last year, I actually thought I'd got rid of it, it was down to a stump and the bastard is now bigger than it was.

[itstimeforchange]

Not sure what is going on with my username but oh well. Hopefully fixed now..

I tried to call in again today as there were definitely people in the house. Turned out to just be tradesmen; the house is having a complete makeover and the people haven't moved in yet.

However I then went into the garden to put up a makeshift fence and a bit later one of the new neighbours came out to do some gardening with her mum. We introduced ourselves nicely and chatted, and after a short time I told them about the rose bush. Apparently it was a gardener who had been there yesterday who had been cutting all the borders back. I was out there some time doing the 'fence' and after various conversations they had realised it was indeed a big deal about the rose and offered to buy a new one.

We also discussed the fence - the original idea was (according to the mum, who was very dominating and had clearly put herself in charge despite not being the one moving in!) to rip out all the border plants, concrete posts and everything to put a 6' fence there ("so obviously there would be some collateral damage," she says ). After some chatting and various suggestions including putting the fence just slightly to one side of the mature plants (including the decimated roses), one of them said it might be easier to do that. So I don't know how likely that is, but I'm hoping that's what will happen...!

Either way they seem reasonable people and obviously didn't intend to upset us so hopefully there won't be any more issues. There is also now a kind of fence there which makes me feel a bit better too!

[fucksakenethuns]

whatever you use be sure to attach it so it can't be shoved aside easily!

[testingtesting169]

Thanks for the practical suggestion fucksakenethuns. Gives me the incentive to see if I can do something about some kind of makeshift fence.

Been out most of the day and now putting the kids to bed so I've had no chance to try and speak to the neighbours again yet. I haven't seen anyone there, but a small window that was open is now closed & a net curtain is now open, so someone must be there - or has at least been in and out. I'm exhausted right now which doesn't bode well for being placid, though, so will leave it til the morning before I have another go at speaking to them. Can't leave the kids to buy anything for a fence but will see what we have lying around. We have a very long ladder which I could lean on the boundary, at the very least!