Neighbours trimmed my bush 🫢

[Raaraathelionrah]

Any advice welcomed!

We live in a semi detached house. Between ourselves and our neighbours on our front garden is a hedge dividing us. No idea who owns the boundary , the hedge is to the right of my house. Anyway, there’s a large hedge separating our front garden, 80% is in our garden and 20% in there’s. We also have a huge bush at the end of the hedge near the road , that’s tall and offers us privacy from the houses opposite. It also had lots of lovely birds living in it happily . It’s more like 90% our bush and I imagine the man who lived in our house before planted it as we have more of these bushes.

Today I came home and found the neighbours had got a gardener to come and they cut the hedge that’s on our side and our bush right down. (I’m talking from 3 meters to 1 meter) We now have no privacy at all and the birds have all gone . The gardener didn’t come on our property (We have cctv) and must have got ladders to cut our side and leaned over. We’re quite upset as now everyone can see into our lounge and the hedge and bush won’t grow back this winter, and it’s on our property and we are trying to have privacy.

Now the problem is the neighbours are in there 70s and I imagine thought they were doing us a favour maybe.

I don’t want to upset the neighbours but would I be unreasonable to go and ask them to not cut our side again? I really don’t know who the hedge belongs to , the bush I think is ours. And if so and they wanted there’s cutting down would they be cross as our part of the same hedge would be tall?! Oh the politics of hedges 🙈

We’ve lived here 6 years and it happened last year but I assumed it was a one off prune and decided to not rock the boat. Now I see it’s a yearly thing .

please advise! You can tell me to get a life and I’m being ridiculous… I’m just gutted we are now on display for the whole road to see !

I can see why you're annoyed but height aside it's really not a great looking hedge. You might be as well off to start over.

Yes especially now it looks bizarre and the bush and the bottom was normal bush shape and now he’s cut it in half so there’s no pointy bit to the top of it 🙈 I know it’s first world problems but it’s odd people can do things on your land. Also my husband trims it all the time. Doesn’t hack it down like this fella has but trims it to look neat. So it’s not like we don’t look after it!

Thank you - I was 50/50 whether I was being precious about it but your reply sums up how we feel!

They definitely had no right to cut through your bird feeder! Though that's probably the fault of the gardener as I doubt they requested that.

Yeah he wouldn’t have seen it from
his side. So I know it’s not purposeful. In my photo the bush is the end but it looks like the hedge as they hacked it down so much 🤣 it was big and bush shaped and pointy this morning now it looks squashed like someone’s stamped on it 🙈

You had a lovely, wild, lush bush! 😭😂

And it’s gone 🤣 I know it sounds so petty and ridiculous!!! I didn’t know that I’d leave my partying 20s and become someone who worries about bushes and hedges to the extent I have tonight …. I must get a life!

We had a similar thing OP a few years ago. Young couple moved in next door having bought the downstairs maisonette. The girl used a couple of neanderthal 'gardeners' who apparently knew her parents to do it. I saw it play out from my office window which looks out onto the garden. These couple of jokers were clueless and were literally attacking the wonderful mature tall Bush made up of ivy, wild roses and jasmine. They hacked at it, shook it. Took the height right down so there isn't much in the way of privacy anymore. The Bush used to be well maintained on their side by previous owner but ignored/neglected when they moved in so it deteriorated hence them getting someone in to work on it. Its ruined now, way too low. They have bind weed on their side which has totally taken over. It's a battle on my side to stop it from taking hold. I know we'll have to have a fence put in at some point which will be a relief in a way. It used to have 4 sets of wild roses. Fuck knows what they did to it. Bloody neighbours!!

I really thought...
No, OK.

Oh gosh that’s sounds awful and very similar! Hacking and destroying it! The hedge looks awful now in the photo I put on but it wasn’t this morning. it was a normal hedge and the bush was well bush looking! I can see why a fence is tempting. I don’t think we will (to not cause tension)
but a low fence and then some lovely larges plants would be good for our side!

and yes bloody neighbours! Ours are so lovely- I bake for them, they come and have tea in the garden and my kids come and play with them which is why this is super tricky

Huh 🤔 what do you mean

"and yes bloody neighbours! Ours are so lovely- I bake for them, they come and have tea in the garden and my kids come and play with them which is why this is super tricky"

Then it's not worth it. They thought they were helping especially since you didn't say anything last year. It's done now. Early next year tell them you're redoing the garden and you're going to get your own bushes and plants and cut that one right to the boundary.

Be clear then that you don't want it trimming because you enjoy the privacy

The hedge I can kind of understand if it's their boundary but not the bush? That whole plant looks separate from the border on your land?

I'd be bloody fuming

The deeds will show you who is responsible for maintaining the boundary.
As a rule of thumb as I you look down the garden the hedge to your left is your responsibility.l? Which I think would make this one yours(assuming it is the front garden in the photo.) However this is by no means universal

I know how you feel. I have a lovely Brunfelsia in MY garden. My neighbour took to trimming it with an electric hacker (not a fan as they don't cut cleanly). Mostly I didn't mind until one day, not long after I'd lost my dad and had an absolutely crap time at work. The bush was covered in flower buds and I was really looking forward to them blooming while I was on 6 weeks leave and planting the garden with summer annuals, plus it provided much needed shade from summer sun at the front of my property. I got home from work to see it cut back. I slammed the front door and sobbed on the couch. I sent him a nice text saying it had upset me and to never cut it again. To his credit he apologised and has not touched it since.

Please don't take any notice of the poster who said 'As a rule of thumb as you look down the garden the hedge to your left is your responsibility.' I was watching BBC's Morning Live only today, and the subject of boundaries was covered, they specifically said that this 'rule of thumb' is a total fallacy, and the only true way to know which boundaries are yours, is actually to get a Chartered Surveyor in. However, they indicated that you'd have to be having more serious problems than yours, to go down this route as it is expensive, and recommended checking the Title Deeds to see if there are any indications, as to whose boundary belongs to who, which is usually, although not always, indicated by a letter T pointing to the boundary. They actually recommended always talking to your neighbour in the first instance, and if any expense needs to be incurred to satisfy yourselves of the boundaries, that it is a good idea to suggest going halves on it.

That having been said, if you know exactly where the boundary is, then you just need to check where the stems of the hedging plants are, and if they are on your neighbour's land, you are entitled to cut right back to the boundary, but must offer your neighbours the clippings. Ideally nothing should be planted exactly on a boundary line, you should always plant allowing for growth, so for example, if the hedging plant is known to grow 3 feet wide, then you should plant it at least 1 1/2 feet from the boundary, so that the whole hedge grows on your side. Sadly, this is often not taken into consideration, and then you end up with your neighbour having to cut back YOUR hedge to stop it invading THEIR garden. Therefore if you do end up planting your own hedge OP, please bear this in mind. Also, neighbours are usually allowed access over your land to maintain things such as fences and hedges, so in effect their gardener would likely have been entitled to do your side of the hedge from your side. I hope this information helps.

Sounds like it might be something like lonicera nitida? That's a fast grower.

Once it sprouts again, you're probably better cutting it yourself so that it doesn't get too low.

They can’t. They can only cut their side. Do you know who did it? I’d be having a word with them too.
Check your deeds, have a word, post on the gardening board.
Are the neighbours nosy? Does it block sun/view from their side?
Consider growing another bush firmly within your boundary perhaps.

Please don’t do a fence. They are the scourge of our wildlife. could you under plant the hedge for the winter? Granted it won’t give you the height but might give you (and the wildlife) some ground cover.

Honestly OP, nice and all as they seem, there is a real arrogance attached to it.
The mistake was letting it go the first time.
You have to speak up.
This will be a continuing pattern if you don't say anything.

It happened to us at the bottom of our large garden.
Lovely neighbours for 15 years decide to cut down OUR hedge that is on OUR boundary while we were away.
They made total shit of it too.
It looked hacked.
My husband called round to speak to them but he had gone into hospital.
His daughter walked out and saw the mess that was left in our garden. His wife was all "confused" about what had happened.🙄
Relations never recovered and he died.
Then we came home another day to a contractor cutting it down. I filmed what was being done and asked him what he was doing to MY property.
He nearly died with shock, apologised profusely and said she had never told him it wasn't her hedge.
We emailed him a stinker of an email and said we would be looking for criminal damage if he came near it again.
It IS criminal damage to cut down trees and hedging that isn't yours.
Things have settled down but if we see anyone doing ANYTHING in her garden we tell them not to touch OUR hedge on top. Tidying up on her side is fine, but touching the height is not on.

I'm in an urban setting and there is a neighbourhood WhatsApp. Recently a family returned to find their trees on their end boundary, like ours, completely cut down at the end of the garden. They posted loads of photos of the devastation left by their neighbours while they were on holiday. It was the talk of the neighbourhood and they have chosen to take legal action.

Such a horrible thing to do to anyone.
So sneaky and underhand.
You need to speak up and be very clear.
I certainly wouldn't be entertaining them in my garden after that.

Not everyone wants max 4 ft around their property, some of us love 8ft walls and hedging that are there many decades.
Nice decent people do not do this.
Arrogant selfish people do.

Oh and I am obsessed with small birds too, my garden is full of them.
Several march up and down outside my window in the morning waiting for brown bread crumbs!

If the hedge has grown from 1m to 3m in a year that is a fast-growing hedge! If it's evergreen, I think some councils have guidance about height of evergreen hedges, you should check this but I think unless both sides of the boundary don't mind they should be kept to 2m or lower.

However, no gardener should be cutting your side of the boundary without your permission.

I think in your case I would go round and maybe take them cake or something, say thank you for doing the hedge, I wondered if we could have a chat about it. Then explain you'd prefer to keep it a bit higher next time, for the reasons you stated here.

Maybe they think 3m is too high - I'd go willing to compromise as they sound lovely and it worth keeping good relations, it sounds like they were trying to be helpful and would probably hate to think they'd upset you.