AIBU Or is this just tragic? What can I do?

[TigerTooth]

I have a lovely (Ok - very child friendly) but still lovely mature garden.
We're away a lot, for months at a time sometimes, and backing on to our garden is a council estate. At the end of our garden, on the other side of the fence, so not ours, were lovely mature trees.They gave us and neighbour privacy and were beautiful.
New neighbour over the fence has cut the trees down, the whole lot, we now have a lovely view of his home - NOT.
I know I'm not BU as they were gorgeous mature trees but I'm posting really to vent and also to ask any green fingered MN's wwyd? I need something that grows super quickly and not too wide, that will look after itself whilst we're not here. He has also bought with him a menagerie of cats who shit in my garden daily.Any ideas on effective cat deterrents? We've tried a few to no avail. It stinks in the hot weather until we've been round and collected all the cat poo. I miss my green country garden.Before and after pics, it doesn't even look like the same garden but if you look at the trampoline then you can see the extent of his butchery. Any ideas on how to speedily cover the damage?

Dont do a buddleia, they go absolutley bonkers. We plants a 'dwarf' variety five years ago, and finally had to take it out last autumn. It had taken over half the garden. Am replacing it with other bee and butterfly friendly plants.

I don’t think the house is ugly, it’s a perfectly normal brick house.
Your trampoline and garden aren’t exactly landscaped to perfection, at all!
You’re letting yourself down a bit OP.
But I do agree the fence isn’t great. Definitely a climber.

Another vote for bamboo...maybe in wheeled pots.

My friend has had a similar issue recently - she's a gardener and has gone the bamboo route.

As for the view of the council house - well sorry, but it IS really ugly

Yeah, totally spoils the scenery of trampoline, basketball hoop and shed

Lidl has sails in next week that you could rig up and attach to provide temporary screening

Sorry I've just seen that you want something low maintenance. You probably don't want to go down the arches and flowerbeds route The pp is right that layering plants is the most effective visual trick.

In which case I'd get a pleached laurel (possibly just one or two for the middle accessible bit between the trampoline and the shed, they will eventually spread laterally as well as vertically) OR get trellis put up with evergreen honeysuckle, star jasmine and pyracantha. Check how much sun the boundary gets. If it's not much you may need a shade-tolerant climber like climbing hydrangea. Plant the climbers out from the fenceline a bit (40cm if you can) and lean the plant support in towards the fence. It's very dry at the fenceline and the soil is poor - this way they get moisture and a fighting chance.

To be honest all my plants took 2+ (some 3+) years to give decent coverage so I wouldn't expect miracles immediately. If you're away a lot it probably won't feel like as long.
At least the trellis will give you a bit of privacy while the plants get going.

Our gardens have similar amounts or mature vegetation along the rear boundary. I hate to see it being removed outright as it provides habitat as well as screening (and a link to history!). I'd rather it was pruned/thinned/reduced into a manageable shape.

However I can understand people don't want to keep on top of the pruning - it's a big job unless you're dedicated or prepared to pay for someone to do it. I'm also SE facing and I do sympathise with the neighbours behind who are shaded out. Your neighbour's garden also looks shorter (or is it the perspective?) which wouldn't help.

As for the view of the council house - well sorry, but it IS really ugly.

Again, why is it at all relevant that it is a council property?

Try imagining how dark their garden must have been and think about whether you would have lived it hit. Those trees are far too big for the garden, trimming them enough to make a difference would be ridiculous.

"Lived it hit" =lived with it.

Can't help with gardening but to keep the cats at bay, mix a strong solution of jeyes fluid and pour it around the boundary and anywhere they might use as a toilet (gravel patches, flowerbeds etc). Lasts about 4 months if you can get a couple of dry days after doing it.

Make sure you keep the kids away from it for 24 hours though.

When I moved into this house I took down some trees from my front garden because there were a lot of them and it was quite dark. One tree came down to reveal a house that we hadn't even known was there, it's on a neighbouring road and my front garden borders onto the bottom of their back garden. I doubt that they were particularly happy about that, although I've never seen them so I don't know for sure. I planted a couple of photenia red robin and within a couple of years they were pretty much fully screened from us again, but it was still brighter for us as the original tree was very dense and spreading.

Non-spreading bamboo. Grows really quickly. Definitely make sure it is a non-spreading variety though.

Can they tidy up their stuff? Or is it always covered in plastic toys?

@TigerTooth NOT leylandii. They will be a nightmare for you as well as your neighbour. They leach every bit of water out of the surrounding soil and grow wide and outwards as well as tall. The only place they should be planted is at the side of a motorway.

I understand you want to get back at your neighbour but leylandii are not the way to do it.

As an aside, they don't seem to have cut down "the whole lot", there still seem to be a couple of smaller trees left. They need time to spread out in their new space and light.

The mentioning of council estate is very snobbish, if I was him I'd have kept the trees to avoid looking at your shit tip of a garden.

The house is about as ugly as your attitude, OP

but the trees could have been cut down

They probably HAVE been cut down. If they’d “ripped them out” you’d know about it because the roots would be under your fence and garden.

I think the word you were looking for is pruned/trimmed/pollarded depending on the type of tree.

I doubt the house is more ugly than your garden in the first photograph, it looks more like a rubbish dump.

The house looks nice, Shame you can't afford to live somewhere else OP, don't be such a cunt, there's no guarantees in life that you won't be in need of a council house.

To be honest I think it looks better now!

I'm sorry for you OP. It's hard to lose your privacy.

My God, OP, but you are a snob.

Not sure why, your garden in the first photo is an absolute shit tip. Too good to tidy up after yourselves?

Wow OP, the more you post, the uglier and self-centred you sound. I'd worry more about what your own garden looks like first, i.e. full of plastic shite etc That's the crappiest view!

@grumpel @sacha
Mind in snobby land it's not a shit tip it's 'child friendly'
Obviously OP hasn't heard the one about people in glasshouses 🙄

OP, I think the view is far worse for the occupiers of the house overlooking your garden, which looks really messy.

Are we sneering at council estates again?

Good thing your garden which looks rather like Regents park isn't an eyesore.