Neighbours causing such a fuss about ivy! Really?

[Peekaboooooo]

Our neighbours have told us about ivy coming over from our side onto their side at least 5 times in the last couple of months. They are a retired, active couple in their late 70s who maintain their garden well.
Firstly, the ivy was not that bad but we did what they asked and cut some back along the fence. Since then, our neighbour has asked again and has almost sounded a bit rude. He says he doesn't like ivy.
This morning he spoke to my husband again about it and this time my husband had to say that we like ivy and we'd like to keep it. Dh said we'd cut back a bit more but then that's it.
I've checked the fence out carefully this evening, both sides, and I can't understand what the problem is. Any ivy coming through the fence is minimal. Plus they can't even see it because it's behind their shrubs and they can't see that part of the garden from their house. And, it's our fence!

What's really got to me is their attitude towards us. Our neighbour even called my husband lazy once which was so untrue and unfair. We both work, have two young children (one with SEN) and lots of life stuff going on as most people do. Our house isn't perfect and may not be as immaculate as our neighbours but we do our best.

I kind of feel like we're being judged. Sometimes I've noticed our neighbour look up our driveway as he walks past and now I'm wondering what he's thinking.

AIBU or are our neighbours ivy grumbles and criticisms justified?

Such a shame because they've been fine for the most part of living here (nearly 4 years) and have been friendly up until now.

That’s debatable. Can’t stand fuchsias, love Ivy.

I love the free plants I get when my neighbours climbers poke over our fence.

Op is cutting her ivy.

I do, it’s easy to keep under control. I love having it.

Just spent 4 weeks killing the fuckers on my side. Ungentlemanly conduct having it I say.

we have ivy coming in from next door, its destroying the fence and despite me pulling it off it keeps on coming. its annoying!

There shouldn't be any ivy poking through their side. Ivy grows extremely quickly so you need to either remove it from that fence or trim it each week to stop ANY going into next door. If this retired couple take pride in their garden why should they have your weeds growing through.

Ivy coming through the fence is not minimal. It spreads everywhere and quickly. Your fault, this one.

The plant pages on RHS always have a link to nurseries that sell the specific plant whose information you have searched. Here is the page for the 'Glacier', hope you manage to source some. RHS Glacier Ivy

Ivy is bad for brickwork, or whatever it's holding on to. It's super invasive and sends out tendrils into every tiny space or crack, over time making it bigger.

Ivy can look lovely in the right setting. It’s also invasive, fast growing, and can look a total mess.

We have neighbour with a fast growing vine that comes over our border, strangling other plants and trees. It’s a constant battle cutting it back to the fence in summer. I don’t have the time to stop their plant making my garden look shit, and I would never plant something so fast growing and dominant myself.

This is how the fence is looking. The bits of ivy on the ground are just the bits that have been cut.

But it's not up to the neighbours if OP rots their own fence. Anything that comes through to their side the neighbours can cut back themselves. They don't have the right to tell OP to do anything beyond their side of the fence line.

When we moved into this house our retired neighbours used to ring us to tell what to do with our garden.

They didn't seem to understand it's OUR garden, and we have it how we want!

OP your ivy is perfectly well controlled.

But it usually is older people whose world has got so small who complain about this kind of stuff. While the rest of us are working, raising kids, looking after parents, they focus on these kind of things as they have nothing else.
I’m not talking about all old people, just the ones who live like this.

Great post!

It’s absolutely fine.

I could perhaps see where neighbour is coming from if the ivy was climbing the wall of the house onto their wall as ivy can damage the pointing in walls but over a fence? Meh neighbour can just trim their side of the fence if it bothers them that much.

Ivy isn’t a weed and gardens are living things – the only way to stop gardens affecting each other is into have completely sterile paved-over gardens. Gardens will always blow seeds into other gardens, roots will creep through, tree branches grow over boundaries. Nature doesn’t care. It’s up to gardeners to cut back what’s encroaching, not for OP to not have ivy. The neighbours can offer OP the ivy trimmings if they like.

You can take pride in your garden and have ivy and have weeds! It’s a very Mr and Mrs Dursley, ‘suburban lawn trimmed with a ruler’ to assume pride = neatly trimmed, weed-free, anti-nature garden.

Speaking as one of 'an older couple', we're delighted to hear next-door's kids laughing and shouting and generally being kids. However, we'd be very unhappy about ivy. The stuff is destructive and invasive, and you have a responsibility to keep it strictly on your side of the fence.

Balls coming over - no problem.Stray spray from kids' water guns - fine with that. Barbecues and music into the small hours once in a while - we're not bothered.

Ivy? Nah. Stop it. Now.

She has. See pic.Gardens aren’t sterile zones. Undesirable plants( to some) are going to poke through. If you want to completely eradicate that buy a garden with no boundaries or wildlife onto other properties.

...yes, miss. Sorry, miss...

Honestly, from your photo it doesn't look bad at all. I don't like Ivy and my neighbour has loads of which grows over into my garden. It took the paint off my wall, which is a bit annoying. I'll repaint it, then make sure I'm more on top of cutting it back, it wouldn't be something I'd want to keep on about and fall out with my neighbours over. They both work and have young kids, so I assume tending to a garden is understandably quite low on their list of priorities at this stage in life.

It does sound like they have time on their hands and have fixated on something minor to get continuously annoyed about. My other neighbour is also like this, she watches out of her window (she's actually told me this before!) and rushes out into her garden when she spots me to tell me how I should be holding a hedge trimmer or something equally ridiculous. If your neighbours are anything like her, you'll cut back the Ivy more often to placate them, then they'll moan you don't cut stripes in your lawn or something daft. It's a control thing, their way of doing things is right and people who like to garden differently are wrong.

My views exactly too. I like hearing next door have their grandkids over for a BBQ. It reminds me of when my own DC were little. Ivy I'd not be happy about and it grows so quickly and takes over a fence in no time.

I just don't know if it's because they're an older couple with too much time on their hands.

Yes, of course, that’ll be it! 🙄
How bloody patronising! Of course life, its problems, trials and tribulations, involvement with family, housework, shopping, cooking, volunteering, even paid work 😮all stop once you hit retirement age. There you are, twiddling your thumbs, scanning the horizon for the next molehill you can fashion into a mountain. Wait till you’re ‘older’ op. I hope life is as easy for you as you seem to think it’s going to be.

Thank you.

We have ivy growing on the house, probably since it was built in the 1980s, and the house is still standing, no problems.

It is cut back, like any other plant would be, every year.

We also have Boston Ivy, which looked cute when we moved in, although I wish we had removed it then. It is rampant and loses huge leaves every autumn. We just have to be ruthless with its pruning.