If you and your neighbour are arguing about the effect of the tree on you, the species of the tree is pretty much irrelevant. It is not the tree that matters, but the property line. The fact that the tree is a living thing tends to make us a lot more tolerant of infractions across the property line, but we should think of this as if the tree were a large RV, parked on the patch that the tree canopy and roots occupy. In effect, the neighbour is using your property to house (and nurture) his tree, and you should consider whether you wish to continue lending your property to him for that. All big trees are serious pests when you are trying to compete with them for space, water, nutrients, clear ground underneath, or what have you. But to complicate things, all trees also have benefits including shade, wind protection, air quality, and whatever they produce, whether nuts or needles, which may also fall to you. A dispute across the property line is all about balancing the pros and cons to you and to the neighbour. Some trees have species-specific behaviours, such as willows invading sewer lines, but mostly the kind of tree doesn't matter. What matters here is the effect of HIS tree on YOUR property. You have a legal right to peaceful enjoyment of your property, and if the tree seriously undermines that, your neighbour should remove the tree. We had a very similar argument with our neighbour about a tree a few feet from the property line on their side. They refused to remove it, and I would have taken them to court if they had not sold the house to people who were more reasonable, and who soon removed it. We actually paid half the cost of removal (and actually loaned them their half of the price to start with), just to keep things friendly. We experienced four negative impacts from the tree, and one positive one. The negative ones were the ROOT invasion, which destroyed my garden and which may eventually have threatened our house; the DEBRIS, which also destroyed my garden, filled our eaves, and also tracked uncontrollably into the house; the CANOPY, which was enveloping our house and thus destroying our roof and siding and also making it impossible to clean the eaves and also made it very unpleasant to be in fully half of our front yard nor could you see out from our house, and the THREAT of the tree falling. The positive one was the shade in summer, and we enjoyed that shade for many years, but the time came when the tree got so big that the shade no longer outweighed the negative impacts, especially the feeling that the tree was going to crush our house and family one stormy night. The funny thing (not funny ha-ha!) about all the tree's effects were that they fell only to us, not to the actual owners of the tree. We were in the tree's windshadow as prevailing winds went, so all the debris blew to our side, and it would have fallen on us if it blew over. It was further from their house than from ours, so their house was untouched while ours was enveloped in the canopy. They had no problem with tracking tree debris into their house, but our sidewalk and thus hallway was always littered with it. We are also downhill of the tree, so our yard tended to be wetter, and as such we had more of a root problem - and I am an avid gardener while they were not, so they didn't care. You do have a legal right to prune the canopy and the roots at the property line, but if you do this knowing it will kill the tree or make it fall, you will probably be liable. You should consult a lawyer - we did; in Canada we have a lawyer referral service where you can get a half hour with a lawyer for $30 or so, and that made it easy. What our lawyer advised was to take them to court to ask for permission before doing the pruning, not to do it first and then be on the defensive. We also have small claims court in Canada, so this would have been achievable. We began by getting a quote for the pruning work, and then we sent them a registered letter telling them what we were planning, but asking again that they remove the tree and offering to pay half the cost. At that point the house had sold, so the new owners stepped in and, being reasonable people, immediately understood that they could not mitigate the effect of the tree on us so agreed to remove it. Arborists are often brought in to argue about how real the threat actually is of the tree falling. On this point the species of tree is relevant, because its root structure influences how vulnerable it is. But even if the tree is not a falling risk, YOUR FEAR, if you have it, is real enough. And the problem you have when you have fear of the tree is that you are ethically constrained from selling your house because putting someone else in what you consider to be a vulnerable situation is no better. Speaking of which, the tree was so big too that it would have reduced our resale value, while paradoxically, it represented a selling feature on their side. It was the most unfair tree placement EVER! :-) I hope your situation is better, and good luck. KarinL

Why not kill the vine with kindness? Fill jars with dilute Roundup solution (3 parts water, I part Roundup), place ends of vines in the jars through holes in the lids and seal the jars by twisting the jar, not the lid. The jars can be hidden by shrubs or other vegetation. The vines will gladly take up the Roundup/water solution and be grateful for the additional water. Top off the solution in the jars as needed with additional solution as the vines take in the water and transport the roundup into their roots. Next year, the vines will be very unhealthy if they even survive the winter. Repeat the second year if necessary. All the roots are probably interconnected, so all parts of the vine in your yard and the neighborâÂÂs yard will eventually die. Commiserate with the neighbors when they express sadness over the unexplained death of their beloved vine.

I am going to be a bit more ruthless and specific and tell you what I feel your attorney is likely to advise... it is what I would advise were you in my office. In our current situation, I would file the case immediately and not even bother with an attempt to resolve. I would then file the notice (lis pendens) at the clerk's office to effectively remove their ability to obtain any financing on the property or sell the property, while putting them on notice that any work they are planning might have to be undone. Because of Covid the hearing will likely be almost a year out (it is in my area right now), so I would just start gathering information on moving the driveway. At that point they are actually being sued. So they will likely see an attorney where they will be advised to settle, because their case, as presented here, is an absolute dog. I would prefer they pay to remove the easement (pay for my new driveway) or maybe I get the easement in writing. I will certainly angle for the money I spent filing the case while I am negotiating. I would never take this to court and the odds of them wanting to take this pile of excrement to court are approaching nil. California has some of the easiest prescriptive easement laws in the country (5 years compared to Kentucky's 15... you alone have had hostile use for 7). You don't need a court to get an easement and you don't need to take part of your neighbor's land. You just need to make sure your neighbor sees your hand and is informed enough to understand what they are seeing. I do respect those people who are advising non-legal solutions, but disagree with those who have already adjudicated the case. Additionally, my filing fees are only $200 and I believe California's are closer to $450. So you would be out $750 here and a bit more in California. There is absolutely some risk, your neighbors could be irrational and decide to fight it at all costs... just let them win. In that case, you just wasted a small chunk of money. My very first piece of advice was see an attorney but don't spend a dollar trying to save a dime. Do the math on the driveway and if moving it is likely cheaper, then obviously, just move it. ----- At this point I will bow out of this discussion. I felt it necessary to provide a more detailed response about how you can protect your interest before the matter is resolved in court in response to assertions to the contrary. Good luck in whatever you decide.

Do consider that you are going to be waiting a long time for a 6' tree planted even as close as the center of one of your lawns to provide any significant amount of screening or shading of the house. But which particular window are you thinking about? A tree lined up just right with one of them and planted close enough could provide an adequate level of screening pretty quickly - maybe even immediately if of the right size and shape. With it also casting a moving shadow over part of the house some day. Otherwise you could block the street with solid fencing and/or hedging/screening plantings consisting of or including dense shrubby kinds. Usually river birch is not affected by bronze birch borer, with up here anyway it being the European, Himalayan and paper birches that are being hit now that the pest has come this far west. For instance the next door neighbors to a friend that lived near Seattle had two cut leaf weeping European birches and one river birch in their back yard. When the borer came to their neighborhood the European birches were being drilling out and dropping branches on his side of the fence in no time. Luckily the neighbors were quick to have these cut down. Providing in addition a much better view of the river birch, which as of the last time I was on the friend's property was still standing there looking intact.