Tyrannical gardening-obsessed shaming neighbors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. You caught me. In fact, I posted here out of sheer guilt from my "volunteer" trees...whatever that could be. I only have a weekly lawn service and obviously should be spending night and day in my yard. Some of you people are insane.

OP you never answered what specific "junk trees" and "weeds" in your yard are at issue here.

If it's dandelions and a red mulberry tree (which may be messy but is native BTW), keep on going.

If we're talking, say, Japanese knotweed, Japanese honeysuckle, lesser celandine, for example...well those are problematic and it would be hard to contain the damage to your yard.

Agreed. Look OP, I get it- I have a 3yo and 5yo and even though I personally like gardening, keeping up with everything with young kids is hard! But with some of this stuff, the longer you let it fester, the bigger problem it becomes, requiring more time or a bigger investment down the road to get rid of it. Our neighbor let a volunteer tree take root right next to one of their larger trees and now its so big that they can't remove on their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. You caught me. In fact, I posted here out of sheer guilt from my "volunteer" trees...whatever that could be. I only have a weekly lawn service and obviously should be spending night and day in my yard. Some of you people are insane.

OP you never answered what specific "junk trees" and "weeds" in your yard are at issue here.

If it's dandelions and a red mulberry tree (which may be messy but is native BTW), keep on going.

If we're talking, say, Japanese knotweed, Japanese honeysuckle, lesser celandine, for example...well those are problematic and it would be hard to contain the damage to your yard.

I said on the 1st page it’s a huckleberry. As for what type of weeds how would I know?

What’s with you being so sassy? I’m starting to think you are the problem, not the neighbor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have young kids and love doing yard work and gardening. It's my stress reliever and I like seeing the work pay off over time. Keeping the yard nice means we use it way more and spend time together outside. It's not mutually exclusive to have small kids and a nice yard.

Our neighbors are weed central and we have spent a lot of time and money keeping their invasive weeds (lesser celandine) out. Sucks but they are really nice people who look out for us and vice versa. It's possible to have this divide and still get along.

Your comments are one of a rational and neighborly person. If you read the comments from the OP, you would know she is not.

Not Op. Her neighbors are rude and not rational. Anyone who attempted to hijack my yard would concern me. I use a lawn service for mowing and some maintenance. I do not use herbicides and I fertilize myself so I use much less than the recommended amount and I only do it in my front yard. I pull some dandelions but that's it. I'm a retired 60+ year old. I can't imagine doing what I do now with young children.

It is rude to continue harping about something that does not belong to you and is not your business.

[Anonymous]

We live next to an old gardener too. She sprays Round Up daily, her garden is weed free and she has cancer BTW. She badgers us about our trees and weeds and fence. We listen and nod and continue not to spray Round Up.

[Anonymous]

I'm so glad that I don't have the time/energy to worry about what my neighbors say about my yard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have young kids and love doing yard work and gardening. It's my stress reliever and I like seeing the work pay off over time. Keeping the yard nice means we use it way more and spend time together outside. It's not mutually exclusive to have small kids and a nice yard.

Our neighbors are weed central and we have spent a lot of time and money keeping their invasive weeds (lesser celandine) out. Sucks but they are really nice people who look out for us and vice versa. It's possible to have this divide and still get along.

Your comments are one of a rational and neighborly person. If you read the comments from the OP, you would know she is not.

Not Op. Her neighbors are rude and not rational. Anyone who attempted to hijack my yard would concern me. I use a lawn service for mowing and some maintenance. I do not use herbicides and I fertilize myself so I use much less than the recommended amount and I only do it in my front yard. I pull some dandelions but that's it. I'm a retired 60+ year old. I can't imagine doing what I do now with young children.

It is rude to continue harping about something that does not belong to you and is not your business.

It’s doubtful that the neighbor is doing what she says. The OP is dramatic in all of her comments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. A classic phone conversation with her went like this: (I swear to god I’m not making this up)

Obsessed neighbor: I’m just calling to discuss your grass experience with you.
Me: (desperately wondering whether she’s for real) What is it you would like to know, Margaret?

Next time I think you should just tell her if she wants to discuss it then she should try to catch the landscaping service that comes over and mows because they would know about grass etc and don't engage with her beyond that.

I have no idea what kind of grass, shrubs or tress we have in our yard. And I don't care. They turn green in the spring/summer and pretty much are barren and die in the fall/winter so I think they are all doing ok at this point. We have a service as well and they have never mentioned any issues.

If the neighbor has something legitimate such as the roots of your tree are growing into her foundation, ok that makes sense to hire someone to assess it and fix it. Or if your tree was really spilling over into her property and they asked about getting it cut back that makes sense to address.

Gardening is a hobby. It doesn't have to be yout hobby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live next to an old gardener too. She sprays Round Up daily, her garden is weed free and she has cancer BTW. She badgers us about our trees and weeds and fence. We listen and nod and continue not to spray Round Up.

If she sprays round-up daily, how does she have any plants left? That kills everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live next to an old gardener too. She sprays Round Up daily, her garden is weed free and she has cancer BTW. She badgers us about our trees and weeds and fence. We listen and nod and continue not to spray Round Up.

If she sprays round-up daily, how does she have any plants left? That kills everything.

Round up doesn't kill the GMO plants that are resistant to it. Oh Monsanto, you crazy evil bastard!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live next to an old gardener too. She sprays Round Up daily, her garden is weed free and she has cancer BTW. She badgers us about our trees and weeds and fence. We listen and nod and continue not to spray Round Up.

If she sprays round-up daily, how does she have any plants left? That kills everything.

Round up doesn't kill the GMO plants that are resistant to it. Oh Monsanto, you crazy evil bastard!

Aren't those mainly crops though? Are there roundup resistant varieties that people typically grow in their backyard?

But yeah, people go crazy over their neighbors using a little round-up when it's a drop in the bucket compared to what industry uses.

[Anonymous]

Are you sure she is using round up? I spray some weeds but with vinegar / acid products which is very different.

[Anonymous]

I had a neighbor who used to rake my perennial bad at the crack of dawn. She thought it was full of weeds. Killed all of my poppies. Caught her in my fenced backyard once as well. She felt like she had the right to prune anything that touched the fence, from our side of the fence. 🙄 I chased her out and had to threaten calling police to keep her out of back. She became more stealthy with front. We knew she was mentally I’ll so tried to be accommodating but at some point it’s too far - inside my fence is that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of you are being disingenuous because you know perfectly well there is a population of old people who expect everyone's yard to look like a golf course. And many younger people don't care about things like dandelions. My pet peeves are giant yew shrubs tall enough to hide the windows, foot high grass, yellow grass from the three large dogs you have living in 1000 square feet of yard, and basically not caring at all. I have three neighbors like this and I never see any of them outdoors and these are people my age. I do have weeds but my yard is pleasant enough to enjoy most of the year and I'm always out there.

<sigh> This is not an age specific issue. I'm in my 50s, have replaced the turf in my front yard with pollinator friendly plants. The neighbors on 3 sides are young couples who pay for lawn service and have monoculture grass. This is a 'person' issue.

So true. Such ageist stereotypes. Similar in my neighborhood. Also the ones who are using Mosquito Joe are the young couples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP. You caught me. In fact, I posted here out of sheer guilt from my "volunteer" trees...whatever that could be. I only have a weekly lawn service and obviously should be spending night and day in my yard. Some of you people are insane.

OP you never answered what specific "junk trees" and "weeds" in your yard are at issue here.

If it's dandelions and a red mulberry tree (which may be messy but is native BTW), keep on going.

If we're talking, say, Japanese knotweed, Japanese honeysuckle, lesser celandine, for example...well those are problematic and it would be hard to contain the damage to your yard.

I said on the 1st page it’s a huckleberry. As for what type of weeds how would I know?

I'm the PP. No need to get snippy with me. Anyway, you just showed that you don't know what you're talking about, yet you think you are the aggrieved party. You act astounded a person could possibly know what's growing in their yard that is drawing complaints from their neighbor. Well, that's not too hard to find out. You don't need to be a botanist to know if it's dandelions or ivy. If it's something like Japanese knotweed, then you better educate yourself. If it's Japanese barberry, it's a haven for ticks. I don't expect everyone to know all that's growing in their yard. But if my neighbor was complaining about weeds in my yard, I'd make at least a rudimentary effort as a homeowner to know what the plant or plants are before posting here that the neighbor is a tyrant and I'm a victim. You said that you have a lawn service, so you could ask them to remove problematic weeds if needed but you are instead all huffy. You sound pretty darn difficult yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just can’t take anymore of our retired over the back fence neighbors. We have a toddler and a newborn, but even before we had kids, they (especially she) were unbearable. She’s obsessed with weeds and what she refers to as “junk trees.” She will call and email us acting as if we have made a commitment to her to weed our yard or pull up some tree she has it in for. My husband laughs in her face. I feel harassed.

Your husband sounds a bit off. Sounds like you were delinquent on yard maintenance even before you had kids.

If your trees are dropping branches or toppling over onto their yard and weeds are encroaching, seems reasonable that she would email.

They could spray but then you would accuse them of poisoning your kids.