"Dawn" wrote in
...
Sigh.
My husband and I spent today cleaning up the yard, clearing dead growth,
mowing, prepping the vegetable garden for spring. I noticed a lot of
branches in the yard on the side of the house with no windows, looks like
our next door neighbor pruned the lilac bush that grows on the property line
and dropped the branches over the fence into our yard.
(Probably sometime last fall or early winter)
I'm tempted to drop our grass clippings in his front lawn, but I really want
it for compost.
good deal, sounds like they don't deserve yer compostable clippings anyway.
They might have thought they were doing you a favor..........and to be
honest....................I used to do my prunings on my own shrubs and
trees and drop the branches over the fence into the pasture next to
me..........until the front neighbor's brother in law needed to move his
cattle into that pasture and Squire and I had to clean out the side of the
fence for him. We did it willingly and without being asked, and that's when
I discovered the tree man had dumped huge trunks of a Jack pine he'd topped
for me years back into the pasture over the fence too.........that's not
good neighbors and I apologized for it to Mr. Hammer. Luckily he allowed us
to just leave that debris and said he'd burn it himself when he cleaned out
the whole fence row later on in the season with his tractor and burn it.
Because we cleaned up our mess and cleared it out, there was no hard
feelings, but if we'd just ignored our mess figuring it wasn't a big deal
we'd made bad feelings from a close neighbor. I now burn my debris since I
don't have a chipper............and am actually thinking of dumping the
debris over the BACK of my fence into the pasture behind me that will NEVER
be developed g (I will ask the neighbor who owns that property if he
minds, but it's so overgrown with dogwoods, blackberry canes, poison ivy,
small pin oaks, and lots and lots of cedar trees it would take a bulldozer
to clear it out. The blackberry canes alone will rip the flesh from your
bones they're so huge and thick!)
"Anyway, I think he's perfectly within his right to whack off whatever part
of the plant he feels is invading his yard, but if he's going to do that he
can take care of the debris himself. Has anyone else had to deal with this
sort of problem? How do you approach the neighbor?"
You approach him this way........(I'm serious here, I'm a nice person and
confront people on a daily basis) with a friendly smile on your face and a
sincere tone in your voice " I see our old lilac was becoming a nuisance to
you on the property line and you had to prune it back a ways. Could you next
time there is a problem with anything like that, just let me know so I can
do it so you won't have to? I have specific times I prune the blooming
shrubs, and you went to a lot of trouble that is a pleasure for me to do
since I'm a gardener! (BIG smile). That old lilac needed thinning out
anyway, but I love to do those things for myself. At least now the blossoms
will be larger! I appreciate your troubles and efforts, but let me know so I
can get out there and assist if you need it or just do it myself, ok?"
"FWIW, neither of us is the original homeowner, this lilac was planted a
good 30 years ago and is about 20 feet high."
Dawn
take cuttings now while there is green growth. New wood dipped in rooting
powder, shoved into soil less mix, kept damp and warm until late May, then
plant the little whips into larger pots and allow to grow in those until
fall and plant within a closer boundary of your house away from the property
line. The thirty year old lilac would resist being dug up or I'd say dig it
up and move it closer in your yard...............
FWIW, pruning the old lilac will make the flowers that were growing last
season larger..........It's always a good idea to cut out a third of an
older lilac. Remove the larger branches, from inside the bush....... leaving
2/3rds of it. Next year, another third of the largest branches. That way
you don't sacrifice the blooms but encourage newer growth.
madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36