NOT to want to chop down my leylandii?

[morningpaper]

OK OK I know it is a scourge etc.

I have a long garden and two old leylandii (60 footish) at the very back. They used to block the view of the council scrap yard which backed onto us.

Two years ago they erected four squillion houses on the old scrap yard. Including 4 along the back of our garden - with foundations TEN FEET from the leylandii.

Of course, the gardens there are only 10 feet long and nothing will grow. The leylandii branches touch the back of the houses.

One of the residents has now asked me to remove my leylandii.

What is the right thing to do?

Anna, there is already a fence there which is 6 foot high - it does nothing for privacy when the neighbours houses are 2 stories high and their back gardens are only 10 foot in length.

Fences and walls are completely different, morningpaper - walls block noise in a way that fences never can. My parents' wall is a good six foot (more I think) and has a fantastic honeysuckle, wistaria and rose (among plants) growing over it now.

The problem with pruning the trees is that they will be dead in the middle and you will be left with unsightly brown tops. I know our ex neighbours did it to their trees and it was God ugly.

Could you not (a) build a wall (b) put in a fruit tree several feet into the garden to block the view?

Think you will maximise value of property with a solution like that...

So are these full grown trees mp?

I think I might take legal advice on this in case it goes any further.

my unconstructive contribution:

leave the trees + get an ASBO, just think of the street cred you'd get!

I don't see the point in taking legal advice. They aren't getting arsey, they have just made a request.

Anna, a fruit tree won't be large enough to block the view - I would need something about 30 feet high.

I've found over the years, that my leylandii have grown up but the branches have raised too and new ones haven't grown lower down, so eventually, the trees don't offer the privacy that they used to.

Hmm. I wish I could draw on here.

How long is your garden, MP, from the back of the house to the back boundary? And how high is the highest window in your house? And how tall is the house behind your back boundary - or rather, how high are the highest windows?

Our neighbour (behind us) tried to sue us when we did remove 2 leylandii, on the grounds that he didn't want to see into our garden. (He lost because of the uselessness of his solicitor on procedural matters, not because of the merits or otherwise of the case). He is a nutter though.

Whatever you do, don't replace it with a weeping willow. They are dreadful for interfering with foundations and drains.

HM I reckon my back garden is 40 foot wide by 100 foot long

My highest windows on the back are just normal second-story height

their windows are also second story height, and their houses are built about 10 foot from my back garden boundary

Does that make sense?

lol no weeping willows are not good for residential properties, I know that much

Wish my neighbour would trim his leylandi hedge as half my garden is turning to moss because of it.
They have all the sun and we get the shade on a quarter of our garden.

Can you now draw a scale model (section) with the back boundary in the middle, the two houses on either side, with the view from the windows into the garden.

There has to be somewhere in the middle of the garden where, if you place a fruit tree, you will block your neighbour's view from their upstairs window.

but there are 4 houses in the width of my garden (you know how they cram them in)

so quite a few windows

mp, at the moment it's a request, what might they do if you refuse? - that's why I'd take legal advice now, just to know where I stand.

Are they full grown trees?

So then you need to do several scale drawings (birdseye not just section), with the angles from all the windows that overlook your garden, to work out how to block the view.

(sorry for so much homework - much better for you however than those lines you thought Carrie and Justine should be setting us for being nasty to Sheherazade ).

I assume they will grow more, they never stop I don't think

I am hoping that some sort of MANAGEMENT of the situation will stop any further problems

MB - rather than me rant away here's a suggestion.
You could plant some screening (tress, shrubs, plants, screen panels with climbers) closer to your own house, which will provide privacy from the flats and would provide areas in the garden that were very private. Think if dividing your garden to make smaller areas, paths leading to different places.

Designing a Garden for Privacy

You can't lop off too much at once, they will die anyway if you do.

Anna I tried working out the best way to block the view and it turned out that the best way was TWO BIG FUCK-OFF LEYLANDII

I'm thinking along the same lines as Anna8888

Yes that's a good idea but

(a) the garden is already planned and mature, there are loads of things we can't move

(b) that all costs a lot of money

A 40-foot wall would need planning permission and probably cost 5k

add that to the 3-4k of removing the trees

there is no way

we don't even have carpets