You name it I am catching up with it, even at work, and this is one of the reasons I am behind at home because of the amount of overtime I am doing after work and some weekends, preparing for our firm’s year-end – if we exceed targets we get a bonus – simple as that – I would be happy though with just getting some sleep!
Last Thursday I had a day in the garden – catching up on the weeding – it was heaven to be outside in the warm sunshine. Apologies for the poor quality of photo my battery was about to go!
Everything in the sunny bed is suddenly growing at a rate of knots and will soon be in full bloom. I have peonies with nice fat buds and even the two most recent additions look like they have a swelling flower bud. They have not flowered since I bought them two years ago – a bit temperamental – I am not even sure what colour they are.
I spent quite a bit of time in the shady bed at the other side of the garden – here the soil is poor despite the amount of compost we dig in the subsoil is not far from the surface. The fence between ourselves and the neighbour’s garden is a bit of a problem as last year our new neighbour decided to remove every last shrub and flower from his garden in favour of all grass.
The fence was a run of 6 foot high sturdy trellis panels and the planting here was once one of my favourite spots. The shrubs planted on both sides of the trellis intertwined and mingled together and formed a good screen whilst allowing the wind coming down off the moors to blow through.
On our side we have a Cotoneaster horizontalis and Hydrangea Peteriolis climbing the trellis – whilst on my neighbours side there was a beautiful variegated Kalmia and various other shrubs that spilled through to our side. However, not only did he dig out all his shrubs but he chopped off all our climbers growing through to his side – result – our climbing plants died back almost to the ground. As you can see they have now started regrowing but at the moment our privacy has gone. Then our neighbour filled in the trellis with additional slats and then highered the whole fence – result – a bit of a mess, although I suspect it looks better from his side.
I have been trying to stop the climbers growing through the fence and getting the chop once again this has been a tricky operation as climbers like to climb and twine themselves in and out of the trellis. Then I had the idea of stretching some windbreak fabric across the bottom half of the fence to protect the climbers low down and we will add wires at the top to encourage the climbers to stay on our side. We also bought a free standing Gazebo to match the one on the sunny side of the garden and we will grow Honeysuckle on this to fill in the space in the middle of the bed and make the garden private once more.
Hopefully by the end of the summer we might have some good growth.
where the journey takes me 
How incredibly disappointing for you. Here it’s common to discuss any fence shared by two neighbors, and when fences need replacing, the cost is also shared. And what a shame to have your lovely plants hacked from the other side and an odd fence addition to boot. It sounds like you have a plan to save your plants, but it would have been so much nicer if they came and talked with your first. Grass and lawn seem to be the go-to these days for folks that don’t like to garden, but it makes me a little sad. Just look at the beauty of your garden. Best of luck with your plan.
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We did discuss the boundary fence with the previous neighbour and that was how we ended up agreeing on trellis because ordinary fences blow down easily here with the strong winter winds and trellis allows the wind to blow through. The shrubs had grown quite well on both sides so you couldn’t see into each others gardens. Our new neighbour did mention he was getting rid of all his shrubs and plants but we never thought he meant he would hack ours to the ground. On the other side of the neighbours garden the fence was clothed in climbing ivy’s and all this has been stripped off so we can even see into the garden beyond! He did leave one feature – the rotary washing line!
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Oh good grief…the rotary washing line. My heart goes out to you. Fingers crossed that your shrubbery fills in quickly and that you don’t have any further incidents.
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I sympathise with your fencing problems, we had a similar situation recently at the end of our garden, which affords less privacy now. The new fence looks pretty high. Your garden is very beautiful. I like the new blog photo too. I hope that work eases off soon and you get to enjoy it a bit more.
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The new fence is very high from our side but then he is very tall! After year end at work (end of June) I am aiming only to work Monday to Wednesday and looking forward to more time in the garden.
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It is hard to keep boundaries between gardens looking good, especially if Neighbours have different ideas. I hope you manage to get it sorted so you have some privacy. It is looking very well kept though xxx
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It is starting to look better now and at least the plants are growing back – such a shame about the gorgeous ones he took out.
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I think the neighbour’s tall privacy slats look quite nice – he could have done a lot worse! That was a great idea for you to use the windbreak fabric. I have had several fence and planting problems with neighbours. On one side, a neighbour put up a new fence to contain her dogs. Ever since, it has been covered with climbing weeds and brambles growing through from her side onto my side. Then she moved out 3 years ago and the house has been empty since! She comes to check on it once a month or so. I got tired of the stuff growing through, so I have now been maintaining both sides of the fence line for the past 2-3 years. There is a section of it she can’t see from her house, so she probably hasn’t even noticed I do it. Once I spoke to her boyfriend about it and he got annoyed with me (!) so I don’t discuss it with either of them! At the rear of my property, the neighbour has a lot of mature trees. A couple of years ago he came over and told me he was trimming them all back. That year we didn’t have the privacy we were used to, but they all grew back nicely. Dealing with other people; what a nuisance, eh? 🙂
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I agree the slats not bad but only a solid fence would stop our plants growing on his side. Never mind I am sure we can work around it and stay friends! seems like you have got a similar problem in reverse!
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