Genuinely upset at this wildflower destruction

[pelargoniums]

Live in a loooooong terrace that backs on to another similarly long terrace, with a twitten between the streets. All the gardens have a gate onto the twitten for access, but no one uses it for actual access: at one end, street access is bricked up; at the other, it’s so far from most of the houses and emerges on the road with nightmare parking so even if you clear your garden, you get the lads to go through the house because big work trucks can’t get down that road. Plus every spring it becomes impenetrable with overgrown plants and wildlife.

Most of my neighbours keep a compost bin, leaf mould, narrow tool storage etc out there. A general “live and let live” attitude prevails so if you put a tool store out, you stagger it against your opposite neighbour’s so everyone can have space.

And it’s lovely! Behind ours I have compost and leaf mould, plus wildflowers naturally – I’ve never planted anything but there was six foot tall cow parsley, green alkanet, bluebells, loads of things I can’t identify. DC spend a lot of time there bug hunting, it attracts loads of butterflies – the caterpillarfest in spring was amazing – birds, field mice.

The neighbours opposite have razed the lot. Not only on “their” side but mine. They don’t garden, theirs is fully paved. No reason to do this – they can’t get out through a bricked wall and they’ve left the next space along alone, which is solidly rose/bramble/thicket. A whole mini habitat gone. Now it’s just bare earth for the neighbourhood cats to poo in.

AIBU to be gutted but more importantly, how to respond?! I’d love to do a line of pleached trees in the twitten to block them from my sight but they’d only chop them down I think, and also £££. More wildflowers, obviously. While the land is bare the kids want to paint a mural on the wall saying Save Our Wildflowers & Our Planet (because I suggested it to them 😂) and paint butterflies, ladybirds, bees. Or something permanent/evergreen and purposeful on my side that won’t encroach over their half of the space, but is clearly meant to be there – as they obviously felt the natural aspect of the wildflowers was too much nature – but still pollinator-friendly. Japanese hogweed? 😈

I had to Google Twitter, it's an access alleyway? So maybe neighbours want to start using it or thought it needed to be clear?

That is so sad! It's sounded beautiful 😍

Op, the six foot tall cow parsley isn't cow parley it sounds like highly toxic and dangerous hog weed have a Google and see if it's the same?

What a shame. Some people want the outside to be so sterile and seem to be afraid of anything natural and wild.

Some of my neigbours have ruined their environment. So I've gone mental with the wildflowers in opposition.
What about californian poppies and teasel? They'll grow almost anywhere.

Which area calls them twitterns, I've heard alley, ginnel, back passage etc before never twitten.

I'm torn on this... usually those pathways are supposed to be kept clear for access.

Agreed. The six foot tall cow parsley was hogweed. It's everywhere near our house. The council come and spray it along all the footpaths but it's in every field. Stay well away from it if you don't want burns!

Cow parsley stopped flowering a couple of weeks ago at least - it was probably hogweed. Great for insects not that good for people or animals

I wouldn’t have thought this was ‘lovely’. I’d have wanted mine cleared too

Do you actually own the twitten at the back, is it your land?
Self seeded flowers growing on an unmaintained patch of land is one thing, but planting pleached trees deliberately is another.
Isn’t the alley technically for access?

It's highly dangerous and you're lucky non of you touched it because it can cause life long sun sensitively and problems with blisters.

A neighbour had one growing in their garden and we were all admiring this Jack in a bean stalk structure but a friend of another neighbour came around extremely alarmed and it was removed shortly after.

It wasn’t hogweed! My last picture of the garden showing it was May, so it may well have been gone a while anyway. Definitely cow parsley; no one got hurt from it.

They’re called twittens in Sussex.

They are meant for access but like I said, unless they get 30 houses on each side on board with clearing and maintaining, the access is long gone.

It sounds lovely, YANBU to be devastated. I would actually go round and have a chat with them - I'd worry they'd do it again if I didn't speak to them.

Not sure a passive aggressive mural is a very good idea, but maybe take the opportunity to scatter a wildflower mix or add some lovely poppies or whatever you like best while the ground is clear?

Firstly, is any of it your land? Because that may affect how firceful you can be.

Approach.

• either ring their bell and ask politely why they did it. There are some very ignorant people who may have assumed it was just a load of weeds that need tidying (I know!). You can then respond that it was intentionally planted and the cats are now toileting.

• replant but in pots so there is no mistaking it's deliberately planted.

• whether replanting in the earth or pots, put up a twee sign ("may all your weeds be wildflowers" etc to indicate its deliberate.

I wouldn't daub any wall whether yours or not as it looks passive aggressive and will inflame tensions.

Male a point of being friendly to them. Eye contact, hellos, a bit of forced chat. Generally people find it harder to do things that they know will piss off someone they regularly engage with (whether they like the chats or not 😆)

Sorry op cow parsley doesn't grow to six foot and also cow parsley has another close relative hemlock.

You got me at twitten. Had to Google that word! That's my word of the week now - twitten.

Right, back to the OP...

Council-owned, possibly. None of us own it. I wouldn’t actually plant pleached trees for precisely that reason, but plenty of neighbours have, and there are some lovely climbing roses and planters.

It’s impossible to use for access without serious investment in clearing a very long stretch and paving it, which no one (except these people) wants.

What you call wildflowers they probably saw as weeds, and I imagine they thought it was their duty to do the weeding in the bit of lane outside their house.

Maybe just let them know you love it left wild and see if they’d be happy to let it grow back.

Quite possibly Hemlock - if it’s in flower now and 6ft. Cow parsley flowers much earlier.
purple blotches on main stem and much stronger growth.
Hemlock is much worse than hogweed if you’re worried about toxicity.

Annoying about the flowers though Op - maybe take the chance to plant something tough/cheap. Comfrey will grow anywhere, loved by bees and will make a green carpet.

were there nettles there?
so many people are dreadful at destroying wild flowers weeds
what a shame

Maybe it was hemlock! I just call everything of that fluffy ilk cow parsley. Definitely not hogweed.

Ringing their bell feels quite aggressive as they’re not my street neighbours but the street behind: something about going all the way round (long roads so it’s quite far by road vs them being right behind me by twitten) and identifying their door on Google maps feels like upping the ante when I can just put some seeds down.

i think it is going to take a LOT to convince people that perfectly manicured lawns and concrete gardens should be a thing of the past, save the bees

Cow parsley can get to 5 feet, so it might not be hog weed - which you'd probably know by the smell anyway. I'm not a fan in the garden personally cow parsley tends to completely take over and shade out everything else - so your neighbours probably thought they were doing you a favour - anyway let me tell you it'll be all back next year anyway given half a chance! I've been trying to get rid of the stuff for years. The bluebells will also be back regardless.

Anyway OP why not take advantage of this and use it to plant some really beautiful wild flowers. I'd give wild flower mixes (and especially corn poppies/corn flowers) a miss as they're annuals/contain a lot of annuals and unless the ground is disturbed each year the pretty ones often won't come back.

Instead perhaps consider ox eye daisies, scabiousa, knautea macednonica, knapweed and musk mallow. They're all really pretty, can be grown pretty easily from seed, are great for a wild meadow style garden (all quite tall), can compete with grass and will come back year after year.

@pelargoniums

Op hemlock can also cause serious illness and it's a grey area I've fallen into it also in my garden I used to think it's all cow parsley but it's not.

It's extremely toxic and dangerous hemlock or giant hog weed.

@Sandy420 Thank you, saving this list!

The walls are 1.7m high and the “cow parsley hogweed hemlock whatever” just slightly peeked over the top. I’ve just looked it up and that’s only 5’6”!