Kay Easton11/5/04 5:20
snip
(OK - I'm not arguing for beech trees in back gardens, but if we were to
get to a situation where you were not allowed to grow anything that
would cast shade on a neighbour's garden is IMO taking things a little
too far, with a detriment to the urban environment as a whole).
Oh, and Sacha - I'm not having a go at you - your post was just a
convenient hook for a frustration that's been welling up in me all
through this thread.
No, I know you're not and I do take your very good point. But leylandii are
not suitable trees for those purposes. I can't see any problem with people
growing smallish specimen trees in city gardens and deriving and giving
great pleasure when planting them. My brother and his wife live in
Wandsworth and have a row of (IIRC) poplar trees at the bottom of their
garden which have had to be severely pollarded and trimmed but which do, at
least in summer, shield them from the neighbours at the bottom of their very
small garden. The trouble is that the trees are inappropriately large for
their setting, have had to be so messed about with as to be almost ugly but
now have a tree protection order on them. I can't see why city dwellers
can't plant trees that are an appropriate size or can be kept to that.
Rhododendrons aren't trees, neither are Camellias but they can grow pretty
big and are evergreen AND can be clipped to the required size AND have
lovely flowers.
Don't forget, the last house I lived in (the one you came to) had rather a
small garden but someone had planted a potentially huge blue cedar in it
because they addmired the one in next door's MUCH bigger garden. I had the
horrible job of cutting down this lovely, still young tree because if I'd
left it to mature, nobody could have got in or out of the front door. So I
do have some sympathy with those in a similar position. ;-)
Why not grow and clip Eucalypts, or a weeping mulberry - very pretty and
with fruit, Kilmarnock Willow, fastigiate anything and still have greenery,
the pleasure of a lovely tree but not the selfish obliteration of a
neighbour's garden to adorn that of the guilty! It's not trees per se, it's
the wrong tree.
--
Sacha
(remove the weeds to email me)