This year our big project for the farm is an electric fence. The year before we fenced in several small spots on our farm and the results were wonderful - barely any deer! Only a few got in because our battery was low. My papa planted a large pine forest and that is where most of our posts came from. Jack pines make good posts untreated, so does Sassafras and White Oak. We used 14 gauge electric fence wire, electric wire insulators, and a 12 volt battery powered electric fence charger hooked up to a solar panel. (This year we need a huge fence charger, we are enclosing 45 acres, so we are hooking it up directly to an electrical outlet). We strung 6 wires about 8 inches from the ground and every foot. The second from the bottom we grounded using a pipe hammered deep into the ground. We got most of our supplies from Tractor Supply and another place that I just can't remember the name right now.

I know that if I suddenly lost 15' of property that myself and others thought I owned for the past 17 years, I'd investigate the property line location as best I could on my own (using prior records) or consider having a surveyor verify the line location. ... the reason being that surveyors are human and can make mistakes. I know when I've had my own properties surveyed that the new work sometimes shows errors (relatively minor ... a few inches) of the old work. It's always puzzled me how surveying seems not as precise as I would have thought it to be. And that the newest work seems to reign as being somehow magically more mistake-free than previous work. If you're resigned to accepting the new survey as correct, so be it. That the neighbor is placing the fence AT the line surprises me. Usually it's set back just a little, how much would most likely be determined by the local controlling authority. I'd check on this issue just to make sure that the fence doesn't need a little clearance from the line. It might be that code requires a set-back. If there is anything to be done about it, then the time to do it is without delay. Delay implies acceptance which makes changes later more difficult, or impossible. That the fence company demanding a survey is not the same company installing the fence after a passing of time seems as if an error could be made more easily. This is just another reason to verify survey claims. Neither would I accept that this is a $900 cost. I'd make calls to a few surveyors and inquire to find out what the "ball park" cost is since the loss of a fair amount of property might be worth paying a bit for. I wouldn't consider it neighborly if a neighbor stacked anything against the back side of my fence. Given that all of my fence would be on my property (so long as it's on my side of the line) then anything stacked against it couldn't help but be on my property, too (another reason to set the fence back a few inches just to make sure it's on one's own property.) Something stacked against or pressing on the fence could cause damage or soiling. By the same token, I would consider planting as I wished on my own property (... probably carry on my love for English ivy!) While you might get useful advice about "etiquette" here, that's not really what you need. You need legal advice in order to get answers to some of your questions. The book mentioned above will probably be helpful, but you MAY need advice specific to your locality. Start with the book and go from there. If the fence turns out to be on neighbor's property--or you accept it as such-- then I'd be careful not to behave in any way that would appear as if you didn't accept it. Doing so could be the start of neighbor unfriendliness and possibly later, "war." It's not fun to be stuck next to someone that you develop unkind feelings for or vice versa ... especially since it started out that you have a good relationship with, and like, this neighbor.

Well, I beg to disagree. I have many acres (about 30) of pines and spruces and I see roots in contact with each other literally millions of times, often even wound around each other, both above ground, and not too infrequently below ground when I am digging (something I do in my groves occasionally), and a very small percentage of these are grafted together. On the surface where obviously the vast majority of my observations are, I see grafts often, but as a percentage of the total I see in contact, it is very small. The risk of a graft as a percentage of roots in contact is very low from my observations. However, if two small roots are in contact, and then they grow in diameter, and the soil on either side is not loose enough for the roots to push away from each other as they grow in diameter, then there will be sufficient pressure for there to be a graft. Sometimes the pressure comes from the roots being very tightly strung across each other, and the pressure from that is what enables the graft. But often I see roots tightly strung across each other, so much so that when I cut one it literally snaps away, with no graft. Often the pressure from one leaves an indentation in the other, with no graft formed, at least not yet. These observations of actual roots in contact is, I think, reflected in the number of my pine and spruce trees that actually are grafted together. I have cut down literally thousands pines and spruces in my groves through the years. These trees were originally planted 6 X 6 and they are now about 45 years old, 80 feet tall, and an average of 18 inches in diameter. Average spacing now is something like 18 feet. Of those I have cut down, I would say the percentage of stumps that have lived because of a graft is maybe 15% or less. Now if the grafts happened as easily and spontaneously as you suggest, there would certainly be a much, much larger number that would have formed a root graft with one or more of the 6 or 8 trees that would be close enough to make a graft relatively easy, and a somewhat larger number would be involved if just one simple root contact would result in a graft. If we were to systematically dig up the roots of some sample trees, I have no doubt that we would find hundreds and hundreds of places where the roots of one tree are in contact with those of another tree. So here I am in this topic warning of the possibility of a root graft, and to some in this forum seeming to exaggerate an issue, and then I find you going far beyond what I would ever suggest is the likelihood of these kinds of grafts developing. I grant that in the case here there is a theoretical chance of a graft between these pines 100 feet away from each other, but to me it is only that--a theoretical chance--hardly a real one in my mind. A root 50 feet from one of these pines, unless it were an unusually large and old one, meeting a root from a similar pine 50 feet on the other side, and then these roots that far away from the parent tree growing enough in diameter after meeting to create enough pressure to graft, even if the soil were not one that would give way a bit to the expanding roots, is a chance poorer than I would have on a lotto ticket! Well, these differences of opinion are what makes these forums fun for us participants, and fun for others to read! --Spruce

Thank you both. Yes, new parent syndrome. I just lost a 20 year old mountain hemlock and a vine maple beside it (and I can't figure out why they died) and am sick about it, so I guess I'm being a nervous nellie about the rest of my trees. Ken, yes it's close to the fence but won't outgrow its spot before the fence rots and I'll likely be gardening in heaven by then. My son will inherit the house and will take out all the trees and plants and plant lawn, I'm sure. My friends are instructed to get Plant Amnesty and/or other gardeners in here to rescue what they can when the time comes. The fence was supposed to be different, but the fence man didn't understand and had about 1/3 of it built before I saw it. This design was a compromise to having him rip it all out. One last question: If I want it to bush up like this pic (thanks for the links, Ken) should I nip the new growth? Is it too early (young to do that)? I want it to look like this, if possible: Bushier tree