My neighbour’s eucalyptus trees

[Jungfraujoch]

There are 2 right on the boundary, one is actually touching the fence (it’s hers). They are getting very tall and overhanging a section of my flowerbed and path. She is not a gardener and I know will just let them grow and grow plus she probably doesn’t want the expense of trimming them! I’m going to have to ask her if I can pay to get them pruned with aren’t I?

You can prune your side with out asking.

Well I’ll ask just to be courteous.

You may find that they overhang so much ( so quickly ) that the weight makes them snap anyway

that’s what has happened twice to the ones overhanging in out garden .

Ask her if she minds if you prune the overhanging branches. Also ask her if she wants you to dispose of the cuttings or she will. Don’t throw them over the fence.

Thanks all, how do I broach the fact that they need lopping for height? They cause quite a bit of shadow / she’s got some sort of pine tree that goes the same - right on the boundary and I get all the dead bits/cones!

You want to watch the roots on those.

You can just ask her what she thinks of the trees, are they sentimental or always been there. In regards to height, there's not much you can do but suggest "tidying" it up. There's no right to light etc. She may well think same as you but doesn't want hassle of arranging anything.

Just ask her. She may be more amenable if you offer to contribute towards the costs. In my experience, a lot of tree issues between neighbours would have been resolved a lot more easily if they had just had a reasonable conversation to begin with. People tend to stew on it for months then go in all guns blazing demanding that the trees be cut down and it just makes the owner defensive.

She has no obligation to cut her trees back or to pay for you to do it, hence why it’s a good idea to approach it politely. She may welcome some help with it.

She might be more amenable if you tell her how big they are when full grown, and how much it costs to have full grown trees removed.

Many good suggestions here.

Some eucalypts will easily outcompete other plants nearby for nutrients, a bit like pine trees, and leylandii. Their leaves, which fall all year round, are similarly inimical to the growth of other plants. Lots have extremely invasive roots. They can grow very tall very fast and retain dead branches which later drop in high winds. Some drop branches to conserve energy in droughts.

They are beautiful trees, but not suitable for most gardens.

It's worth finding out what kind of eucalypt it is.

We had a eucalyptus that we allowed to grow too tall. One night a huge branch snapped clean off in a storm and caused a lot of damage. The tree surgeon that we got to reduce the height of what was left told us that eucalyptus trees were prone to being unstable in strong winds.

Maybe you could suggest to her that it would be a good idea to have the height reduced for safety reasons.

If she isn't deliberately wanting it to be tall, you could offer to coppice it for her? Then it would turn nice and bushy for her but stop any issues of overhanging from your perspective.

Thanks all. I’ve spoken to her and I’ve got someone coming to take a look - she’s happy to have the height lowered a little - they’re going crazy in this wind!

There used to be some eucalyptus trees in a patch of ground on the farm on the other the other side of a farm lane that runs behind our back fence. They rapidly grew too tall, one came down and damaged a neighbours fence. Fortunately the farmer realised more were likely to come down and his insurers probably wouldn't be happy as they were clearly a risk, and also of course they'd his own lane so he took them down and replaced with hazel.

I'm not sure you can lower a fast-growing eucalyptus 'a little' - coppicing might work but really tall fast ones aren't really suitable for normal gardens or near other peoples property.

That's good you have someone coming round OP. If they're a qualified tree surgeon, chances are that they'll strongly recommend taking the trees down completely anyway. If a professional makes that recommendation for safety reasons you may find your neighbour is actually quite amenable to the idea.

When we bought our house it had a eucalyptus tree in the back garden. We had booked a tree surgeon to prune some other trees, didn't even mention the eucalyptus as one that needed pruning but he took one look at it and said it really needed to come down.

As a PP says, they are beautiful trees but not ideal for gardens unfortunately.

You can be totally brutal with pruning eucalyptus. It comes back quickly though.

Makes sense. They’re designed to cope with Australian bush fires and need to regenerate fast.

Don't the roots of eucalyptus spread and it's not recommended to plant them in suburban gardens ?

Not always. A tree surgeon pruned ours quite heavily and it died. It had been fine up till that point.

As said up thread, they are shallow rooted and fall easily in high winds. I had one in my garden for about ten years, and I had looped it. It narrowly missed the house when it fell over in a storm.

They're really not good trees to have in small gardens. They grow very tall and are very thirsty; often linked with causing subsidence. We had a couple of young ones in our garden when we came here which the previous owners had recently planted. We chopped them both down straightaway.

They're thirsty trees and can cause problems if planted in clay soil too close to a house. We needed to pollard at least 10 feet a year. They can also drop branches during very dry spells. Theyre lovely trees but need to be grown in a big space away from buildings.

You need to speak to her.

@LadyEloise1 you may be thinking of bamboo?

Both eucalyptus and bamboo ! @Daffodilsandsunshine

That's a shame @Talipesmum. We took £10 saws through the trunks of ours and they were fine. One did eventually die but that was honey fungus.