Need help with (neighbours) cedar hedges

19 years ago

Hi there,

I'm looking for some design assistance with a kitchen garden.

This fall, we had to have the foundation of our home waterproofed, and decided at that time to have the asphalt beside our house dug up, thus turning our five car driveway into a 2 car driveway and vegetable garden. We're planning on building a picket-like fence from the front corner of the house to the cedar hedge and transform the space from there back to the garage into a kitchen garden. We're going to build some raised beds. This is what the space looks like now:

The kitchen garden is on the west side of the house and I suppose is both north and south facing!

My challenge is with respect to the cedar hedges.

The hedges belong to our neighbour and grow on to our side of the property. The hedges also obscure a chain link fence which marks the property line. While our neighbour cares for the plants on his side, I don't think our side has been trimmed in years. It's completely overgrown and in rough shape. But what's really problematic is that the hedges are completely (and I think unsalvagably) dead in places. Really bad looking for us!

We'd like to build the raised veggie beds along the same side as the cedar hedge. We like the privacy and protection for the plants.

What kind of options do we have?

Should we cut the hedges back? Should we try to build a living fence or some other fence-like structure to obscure the cedars? Any other possibilities?

Thanks in advance for your help.

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Comments (3)

amazon
19 years ago
First I would speak with your neighbor before this starts a fued. Legally you can cut anything from your side of the line but I'm not sure that would look better. Maybe they would be interested in replacing the hedge as well,.
gumshoegirlgrows
Original Author
19 years ago
Yes, I'll definitely talk to him...although, I'm not expecting much success.

Our neighbours have lived in their house since after WWII and are definitely getting on in years. Last summer, he caught a skunk in a trap and couldn't release it because he didn't have the hand strength to open the trap. We helped out with that.

He's also had the same patch of grass sodded by the city for three years in row and is infuriated that it dies each year (hint - it needs to be watered!!)

I'm unsure as to whether he would have the capacity or the will to fix the cedar hedges. So barring that, I'm hoping to create an action plan! Any other thoughts?
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lorrainebecker
19 years ago
You said that your neighbor cares for the shrubs on his side, but that nothing's been done with yours. I had this kind of thing at my last house. Where I live, if they're on your property, you may cut them back to the property line.

I told the neighbor one day - with the power trimmers in my hand - that since his side looked so good trimmed, I was going to tidy up my side as well.

I trimmed it back as much as I could without making it look completely awful, and then I put in my raised beds in that area. It's enough work starting a new garden, that I didn't want to worry much more about the hedge. I just grew my taller plants wherever there were bald spots on the hedge that I wanted to camouflage.