You can clip Leylandii to a hedge but start immediately it comes through the chain link. That way it will remain fresh and green and you won't be cutting back into brown wood. However, you won't be able to affect the height as the leaders are on their side. If you are lucky they may soon realise that they have blocked all the sun from their yard by growing this monster along their southern boundary. You'll just have to wait until the light dawns on them - or rather it doesn't. Just thank goodness you are not on the North side of this menace.

Here is a link that might be useful: Trimming a Leylandii hedge

Very intelligent post, new face Chris. I'm so fed up with these horrid plants and the generally horrid or ignorant people who plant them in the way you've described. I don't feel like writing any more about the topic, except to say back when I was foolish and did move some small pre-existing leylands from one place on my property to another, I put them on 6' centers and I now realize that was too close together. Just today, if it's mild enough, I'm going to start removing that hedge, now 25' tall, because in a few more years they will be completely unmanageable.

The were pre-existing because the person selling my house in the mid 00s thought leylandii screening would make it more marketable.

Was just up in Lancaster and Chester Counties recently, and saw a couple nurseries with big signs out by the road "HUGE LEYLAND DISCOUNT - $15" or whatever. As in "GET THOSE PLANTS THAT ALL TURNED BROWN LAST WINTER, AND ARE COVERED IN BAGWORMS ALL SUMMER!"

It could be that the Cypress being planted so close together is actually an advantage, as they will all be competing with each other and thus may stay smaller and grow more slowly. We see that here with trees used as hedges.

Has grown over 100 ft. tall in Britain. The only point to close planting in rows is to make hedges, which need to be sheared on all sides every year if an attractive effect is to be produced. Tree forms a quite nice sheared surface when this treatment is started early enough in the life of the planting, is often not as appealing when allowed to have its natural habit. And shearing only part of any kind of specimen or hedge produces an odd appearance, a combination of formality and informality within the same object. When only the lower part is sheared it looks like there is a deer infestation.

This post was edited by bboy on Thu, Dec 18, 14 at 17:41

Hello Chris!

My strongest suggestion for you is that you approach your neighbors in a VERY FRIENDLY manner right away. I'd interject some good natured information, such as:

"You know that these things can grow to be over 40X25, don't you?"

"I thought I'd warn you now that I'll be keeping your Leylands sheared on my side of the property line...probably starting next spring, considering that they grow about three feet a year."

"I want you know that I give you my full permission to come over to my property whenever you need to shear your monsters."

Anyway, the sooner you broach the subject, the better you will feel. And they, too, when they know that you have no intention of letting the darned things crowd your property.

Hopefully, they will keep the height down so that that side of your property isn't cast in shade most of the day. Have a neighborly pow wow soon.

Thank you all for your advice. I've been really bothered by this whole thing, but am hopeful that I can at least keep these things trimmed to the fence line without it looking terrible. Once the cypress reaches a certain height, I may be able to convince my neighbors to allow me to trim along the top as well. The only problem I can see there is that the other two sides of the yard will not be getting any pruning, so they may take issue with the whole mismatch look. On the other hand, those two other stretches back up to small wooded plots. I know the landscapers did warn that they were too shady, but my neighbors insisted. They're were just deadest on idea. I don't know how those trees will fare.

I'm not really concerned with my side of the hedge being trimmed while their side is not, since I won't really be able to see into their yard, and they won't be able to see into mine. One of the above links presents a new problem I hadn't considered, and that's root pressure from these things...

Hoovb, one can only hope. Thanks for some encouraging news!

Rhizo, I actually did make some friendly comments when they first floated the idea of this hedge. They were great about keeping us in the loop regarding the new fence and they mentioned the hedge in passing. I voiced my concern that they would shade out our new beds, but got a "oh, I think you'll have a long time before you have to worry about that". I also suggested that they perhaps set the trees away from the fence somewhat, "so that I'm not constantly having to hack at them", to which I got a "maybe we'll do that" response. But, when it came to planting time, I'm sure the landscapers did whatever they wanted without any interjection. I think the best I can hope for at this point is that they let me top them off at a certain point. Luckily, my yard is wide enough, that at worst, maybe only a third of its width will be affected.

Thanks again,
Chris

As mentioned you don't want to let them shoot up and then try to reign them in at that point. As with any sheared hedge you need to start the annual shearing when the plants are still small, have them develop under a regime of annual pruning as they go.

This post was edited by bboy on Thu, Dec 18, 14 at 22:29

You can always hope for a bagworm infestation or canker outbreak.

I remembered posting about this and thought I'd provide an update. My neighbors are thankfully maintaining their cypresses as a hedge, similar to how you'd treat a row of privet. So, all my anxiety may have been an overreaction. The height will be maintained at a reasonable level, and the shadow will be negligible. I don't know if they planned this all along or pitied me, but either way, I am very grateful. Let's just hope they don't move away and leave these thugs to the next neighbors who certainly won't bother with the upkeep. I suppose I still need to deal with the roots...How far do you think I should plant from the base of these things to prevent too much competition?

-Chris

Even kept at hedge height, you are likely to see a 2metre wide stretch of bare soil (or straggly grass) since they have large and thirsty roots. They are a dismal plant (have caused murders in the UK and new laws being written into the statute books). I might be tempted to pour a whopping great concrete footing and have a pathway on my side.

The builder of the house next door planted one in front of my neighbors front window. Can't wait to see that grow up.

My husband and I thought about getting some for the yard, but did the research in our area, and they have a bagworm problem here? Anyway, I have no patience for that. I always do the calculations when planting or installing a bed on my property. I don't know why more people don't. I would never want the headache in the future of something on my property becoming a problem for a neighbor. And I wouldn't want to lose a tree because of it in the future. I'm considering adding some Nellie R. Stevens Holly. We have one, and when they bloom, they attract bees, which is a great thing. I just don't want a neighbor to be upset about that, so I'll have to do more calculations so I don't have any neighbors complaining about bees.

Anyway, I totally agree with rhizo, especially with this statement:

"I want you know that I give you my full permission to come over to my property whenever you need to shear your monsters."

LOL! Just talk with them. When our neighbors first moved in, they had a fence installed, but the fence company had a survey company come out to stake their property line. The problem was they put the stakes in the wrong place. I don't know how they miscalculated, but they staked it about 2 ft into our yard. We left it there, thinking that we might have to move a tree we planted close by, but just knew it wasn't right because we checked our survey again. Well, the homeowners caught my husband outside coming home from work. He didn't want to take the stake out until he could explain that the fence guys were totally wrong. They were sorry. They were very upset with the fencing company because they finished putting the fence up the day before they came to survey their property, and installed it way off their property line. Anyway, after talking to them, we found they are very nice neighbors who don't want to encroach on us either.