Asking neighbours for money?

[DunePeyton]

So my elderly neighbours have a big corner plot garden which is ridiculously overgrown. Enormous sycamores, including one which has a forked trunk which fans out and blocks a fair bit of our daily sun, and a eucalyptus tree which sheds its bark all over our lawn (but that’s not my main issue). Hundred of shrubs, vegetables,
nettles etc.

My main issue is I feel continuously invaded by all of their out-of-control greenery that grows over (or through) our border line, leaving me no choice but to constantly cut it all back and fill up our green bin with it. I don’t even like the thankless task of gardening!

I have a fairly large back lawn and a bit of grass at the front and a full cut fills up my entire green bin and I haven’t got space for their crap also! I have jokingly suggested to themthat maybe a gardener might be a good idea, but they are adamant they will do it themselves-
onky problem is they aren’t doing it!

AIBU to ask neighbours for a contribution towards our green bin subscription as I strive to keep a low maintenance garden and so much of the garden waste that fills our green bin is from our neighbour’s garden which doesn’t seem fair. I get invaded on the other side too, but it’s not quite so bad as they have a gardener once a week. Am I right to be pissed off? I spent about an hour today getting pricked while cutting back their rose bushes which are always creeping over our walls.

Let your neighbours enjoy their lovely wild life garden with their beautiful trees giving shade and helping to cool everything down. Have you seen the news recently? In a year or two you will be very glad of their trees.

Yes just throw it back over their side.

I'd bounce it back to them. It's their problem and they're making it yours. Ask them where they'd like you to put their cuttings, so throw them over the fence or do they have another suggestion.
I don't know if anyone here can advise but surely allowing your garden to 'invade' someone else's is anti social behaviour. I don't mean a one off, this sounds like it's been going on for a while. They might be older and struggle to manage it, just as I'd struggle to plaster my walls....so l pay for a professional to do it.

Talk to them first- ask if you could put them in their green bin. If no room, could they pay for you to have a second green bin.

This 👆🏻

Do they have a green bin? I'd just say something like 'I'm happy to prune your growth that comes into my garden but unfortunately I can't afford to pay for extra disposal as I already have my own garden waste to dispose of.
I'll need to put it in your green bin for disposal each time'.

Sigh.

No, don’t throw it over their side unless they have actually asked you to do that. You are supposed to OFFER the cuttings back or dispose of them yourself, not launch them over the fence.

My point is that my grandparents (if they were alive now) would be early 90s. They never managed to get money together to buy their own council house, so they rented for 60 odd years.

People of their age who DID manage to buy homes have (on the whole) no excuse for being poorly off now.

I think you are confusing an ingrained frugality and reluctance to spend money with actually not being able to afford things.

If she'd have the bin anyway and isn't overfilling it or needing an extra bin due to these branches, then I don't see why she'd ask for money. This isn't costing extra money above what she would be paying anyway.

Dealing with the actual issue of the plants coming over onto her property is separate. But asking for money towards a bin which she'd be paying for anyway just doesn't make sense.

Put it in their garden bin.

OP may want this thread moved to legal to get some gown ups to look at it.

I didn’t think that was the case and I’ve heard mixed views on this…

That’s was regarding throwing cuttings over

By "mixed" views, you really mean right or wrong.

Especially with neighbours, you really want the right view.

Hence this may be better dealt with in the legal forum.

Don't pick this fight.

Get a weed proof fence and a compost bin.

Speak with them again. ‘Since we last spoke I noticed you haven’t been able to make much progress with your garden and unfortunately this is really affecting me. How can we resolve this? Perhaps you could getting a gardener in a few times a year to help with the heavy pruning?’

It may take several conversions but nobody wants a garden to become a jungle, it will cost far more to sort out than some regular basic maintenance. It might also be worth mentioning rats.

Just a little bit more info - they take pride in their garden even though it’s an Amazonian wonder. They told me they had a gardener once before but they kept pulling out stuff they didn’t want removed and so they stopped it and have said they don’t trust them. I felt that surely this was a communication issue and even if not, perhaps try a different gardener before writing them all off.

They live in a big detached home and they don’t seem poor (Land Rover etc) so I don’t think it would be a financial impossibility. They have kids in their 40s but never see them, less helping out in the garden. I think it is as someone has said, not being able to own up that they are unable to do it the same.

They haven’t got a green bin and I think they burn sometimes, but I think it’s unfair to pay £100 a year on a bin which I fill with their waste.

We have 5y ds so don’t want thorny roses coming over to prick him. I try and spray, pull off all the Ivy coming through but it’s destroying the fences. Some people seem to have no idea what damage plants can do.

I don’t enjoy gardening, but I’m not against anyone having a lovely wild garden, but at what point do you have to tame it a bit. I’ve got rid of lots of the huge undulating borders that were there when we moved in, and replaced with turf as we have young children and I was spending hours on end maintaining the garden. I’m not an artificial grass kind of person, but I am a boring low maintenance garden type-of-person.

thanks for replies everyone.

Decadactyl, I do hope in real life you think a bit more deeply about things than your sweeping statements on this thread make it seem. You are basing your whole argument on the fact that your grandparents were never in a position to buy a house but everyone else of their age group who did manage it is now rolling in it! How many of these wealthy 90 year olds do you actually know? If you know any at all, are you privy to their financial situation? My parents had never been able to afford to buy a house. My grandmother died and my father inherited her house. They became home owners but it didn't alter how much money they had coming into their household. Owning a house doesn't affect your income.

It would be rare IME to find elderly people whose parents were homeowners, who did not manage to afford a home themselves.

Regardless of whether this is true or not, it IS true that the majority of those over 75 are frugal. A gardener would be deemed "too expensive" whether they were well off or not. A colleague of mines dad (who is 91) is, in her words "rolling in money" but he sat in the dark cos of the electricity bill going up.

My thoughts on this are such that, if your garden is becoming a nuisance to others, you have an obligation to tame it. If the house you've inherited is too big for you to maintain, you should downsize.

I am not confusing it at all. These people have lived long enough to own the houses. Prices have increased for everything, their income has not increased at the same rate. If one dies they lose one pension. More outgoings, less incomings. They use their savings if they have any left, for necessary repairs and would rather have a roof that doesn't leak than a gardener.

Not everyone of that age would have had a private pension and many only have a State Pension which is really not enough to live on in most cases. It depends on what work they did and whether they were able to save or whether their employer made provision.

Honestly - yes you ABU - despite most people thinking if you have no mortgage you must be cash rich they could well not have very much disposable income at all and cannot afford it. Will you be offering to soundproof their house if your garden noise is too loud for them? OF course you wouldnt. If you dont like - MOVE! Otherwise do the kind, responsible, nonbitchy and nonselfish thing and trim it back like pretty much every other home owner does and hope when you're elderly theres no cost of living crisis that bites in to your pension!

No. To use your emphatic capitals, it is NOT true that most over 75s are frugal, assuming you mean "pennypinching with no need to be". 75 is not the age your grandparents would have been by now and there is a whole generational difference there. I'm not that old yet, but my husband is exactly that age. However, our parents would be in their 90s now, so not our generation and not the same problems (or causes of those problems). I think you're jumping on the Boomer Misconception bandwagon. We struggled through the absolutely appalling 90s, to pay our mortgage to buy our house. Interest rates were very high and it was a frightening time. Our children are now facing a possibly similar situation. Every generation has its struggles. Please open your mind and stop spouting such generalisations. I agree though that OPs neighbours should be more aware of how their garden is affecting their neighbour. I'm not sure what the solution is but saying that they must definitely have surplus money in their budget to deal with it is not helpful when it probably not the case anyway.

You generally have to pay for the garden bin...we have to....I don't like, I use my parent's as we have such a low maintenance garden (no grass, just pots and gravel) no not economical for us to pay for it. Our previous council didn't charge but current one does.

It’s a difficult situation and I understand where you are coming from, trailing plants/weeds can cause massive damage to fences. I have a similar problem with the house that backs onto mine. It is a rental property and the garden is poorly maintained so I have ivy, laurel, holly and other invasive bushes breaking down the fence as they grow. All the neighbours do is cut down their side about once a year with a hedge trimmer but this does not reduce the stuff on my side as the hedge is now too deep for them to reach!

I have spoken to them about a couple of huge leylandii trees and eventually the landlord did get those cut back but the ivy growing around the trunks still encroaches my garden. I just have to accept that I will have to keep hacking back the growth to stop the fence from falling down. When I was physically able to do the work myself, I used to keep on top of it by cutting back where I could reach and also cutting through lower stems to kill off the top growth - much easier to remove when dead!

Now I have to use a Gardner to look after my own garden and he doesn’t really have time to do much clearance on a regular visit so I’m going to have to pay him for an extra visit when I can’t stand looking at the mess any longer!

Luckily we are not charged extra for our green bins which get collected each week as our food waste also goes in them. I bought an extra green bin to put the extra trimmings in which I use about four or five times a year. There are ongoing discussions from our local council about charging extra for green bins so I guess I’ll end up paying for two bins if that happens. I can afford that but it grates a little as it’s not rubbish from my garden.

But I don’t want to fall out with the neighbours, I’m just not that kind of person! If the tenants change though, I’ll certainly be having a chat with the landlord and the new tenants about their gardening plans.

I’m sorry not to have any specific advise to you other than try to kill the bushes that are close to your fence, either by hacking through the stems to let the top branches die off or by applying weed killer. I’ve used a gel type that you dap on with a small brush to successfully kill ivy and other persistent shrubs, you might be able to get the brush though gaps in the fence to get the gel on the lower leaves?

Well as the AVERAGE U.K. pension pot is valued at £30k (total, not per year), you can believe what you like, but thems the facts!