On Sat, 8 Nov 2008 15:56:35 -0600, Eggs Zachtly
wrote:

mm said:

I hope you can help me.

I have a couple evergreen trees that are close to my property line.

I'm not sure what I have, and I think I need to know to ask advice.

A pic, posted to the web and linked to here, would help. Do they produce

I'll try to do that. I need to borrow a digital camera.

cones or berries of some sort?

No berries, no cones. On the ground there are a lot of half-inch or
so clusters of little brown needles in a cone shape (but not cones
liek a pine tree has.)


They're not pine, or arbor vitae.

Arborvitae is one word, not two. What makes you so positive your trees
aren't Arborviate?

Because I have one of those and it's definitely not that.

I've tried to find them on google
images, and the web, but I don't have enough tree names to search on.
I think they are called fir trees, and they are something like
Christmas trees, but not exactly.

Fir trees have needle-like leaves.


That is, on most of the tree, I can't see the branches at all. They
are totally hidden by the green surface made up of little "leaves",
(not needles) sort of like snowflakes but rounded and not hexagonal.
That's probably clear as mud.

Pretty much, yup. =)


Inside the trees are brown and sort of ugly. They have branches with
strange adhesions, like pieces of bark slightly separated from the
branch, and iirc the trunk is like that too.

They are about 28 years old and about 25 feet tall. Six or seven feet
wide at the widest part, 5 or 6 feet off the ground, one tree
extending about a foot into my n'bor's air space, and the other about
6 inches.

My new neighbor wants me to trim them. Whaddaya think?

Who cares what your "new neighbor" thinks? They're *your* trees.

The law requires one to trim what extends past the property line, or
that property owner has the right to do it.

I'd like to talk him out of doing what he has a legal right to do.


I think they'll look ugly if trimmed, especially to him. That the
green part will never grow back and he'll see a brown hole leading all
the way to the trunk. (About 3 years ago, I was distracted by work
and sickness for a month or three, and a weed grew up to about 5 feet
tall, kept the sun from the tree, and the tree "leaves" dropped off
and haven't grown back after 3 years, even though I cut down the weed
3 years ago. One just sees there the lightless dark brown interior of
the tree.

He also says they are too tall. The tallest parts of course are the
narrowest parts, that don't extend above his property. If the top
were cut off, wouldn't it damage the tree a lot. IIRC I saw this once
and the tree didn't grow for 2 or 3 years, but then it sent out a
branch which eventually turned vertical, and it started growing again
but didn't look attractive. No one trims fir trees at the top, do
they?

*NEVER* top trees, unless the tops are severely damaged.

OK!


FWIW, and I'm not saying this changes my duty, but one tree extends
onto his property at a corner that he never goes, and the other
between the 42" picket fence and his deck, but it's easily wide enough
to avoid the tree, and he never goes there anyhow since he doesn't
need to get his lawnmower anymore. The garden faucet is back there
too, but I don't think he ever uses it.

What should I tell my neighbor?

How about, "FOAD"?

The trouble is, he's got a lot of complaints not related to tree
trimming -- my deck is falling apart and needs to be replaced, and
I been sick and just had surgery and can't do the work myself yet, and
don't intend to pay someone to do a worse job than I will do. In
another month or two I should be able to tear down the old deck. He
also thinks that mice are coming from my property, even though they
aren't. But he's had more success in convincing the Board of the
Homeowners Association that he's right, than I have had convincing
them otherwise. ==

and the nasty president of the Homeowners Association has already
started making things hard for me. The head of the Architecture
Committee, which has responsibility for this, has already washed his
hands and left it up to the Board, which can be very flakey

So if I lay down the law with him on one thing, like he has no right
to trim more than so much on the tree, he'll emphasize his complaints
on the other stuff, and the Board isn't well enough informed to know
what's fair and what's not. And there are no written standards about
how neat is neat enough. It's quite dependant on who likes whom.

I don't think he's lived among fir trees for very long,

From the description, I don't think they're fir trees.

and may not
know how they work. I think he's from south of Baltimore and I don't
know how long he's lived here.

Your location, rather than where your neighbor used to live, would be more
helpful.

I'm in Baltimore.

And, you said he was your "new" neighbor. So, are you the one
that's actually new to the neighborhood?

No, I've been here 25 years, and never had problems with my neighbor
before. He's a very pushy guy, but charming with other people, and
in addition because of the politics of the n'hood, he's got the
advantage here.


Not only will trimmed trees be uglier for him but they'll also be
uglier for me.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Again, a pic would be most helpful. =)

I'll try. Thanks I'll get back to you.