Desperate for Advise/HELP on landscaping dilemma!!
Last summer we had 50 years of old, mixed, unprofessional bad landscaping removed to have our small backyard professionally landscaped and sod Installed. The landscaper we hired turned out to be a mistake and in addition to other things gone wrong, the day before he was to come to plant (10) 8ft. laurels he phoned to tell us he could only get 3ft. laurels. That would not do as our main concern was to obtain privacy which our old landscaping totally provided. After making nunerous calls to garden centers and were able to find 5 to 6 ft. cherry laurels, which we purchased. The laurels are very nice and doing good but they will take years before we will be able to have any privacy. Our back yard is small and our deck is about 35 ft from our neighbors deck, as you can see in the picture, and their deck lines up to their neighbors back yard and this continues to line up amd go down to other yards. So now when outside we are living in a fish bowl with our neighbors (who are very nice….but) and all we see are white fences for as far as we can see. We need at least 10-12 feet of something to give at least some privacy.
Can anyone please recommend anything we can possibly do to get some privacy before summer arrives. There are 10 cherry laurels planted 5 feet apart and cover 50 feet of space. There is only about 2 feet of space behind the laurels and our neighbors white fence. We are located in Cape May, New Jersey and after doing a lot of research and making calls to any garden centers open, the only thing suggested was to possibly plant bamboo,in pots, between the laurels, turning this into a very costly fix, In addition, we were notified that last year because of the invasive nature of bamboo it can no longer be planted in our area. Turning to bamboo fencing as a possible solution, I was not able to find any tall enough to solve our problem.
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions and thank you in advance for any time you can offer.
Comments (11)
PROPatricia Colwell Consulting
last yearTo satrt you would never plant 10' laurels that close together. Why not do something like this until the laurels growup . I would never plant bamboo in pots ot not they find a way to grow and invade .With something like this you could plant some kind of climber to fill the gaps and have it look nice.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
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Comments (42)Yardvark 'Quote"\' Looking at the picture, you see that the three shuttered window sets are underscored by small hedges. Two individual shrubs would make one hedge so that's 6 plants total. It looks like the hedges should be about 3' ht. so one would want to select plants that max out at that height. (For myself, I'd rather wait for a slow growing plant than to choose one that grows too fast and won't stop where wanted. That's too much maintenance!) If a plant is easy to trim and not too fast growing, like Azaleas, I would consider it. The plant would need to tolerate a little shade (this presumes you limb up trees. Yardvark, I went to the nursery specifically to look for the hedges that will underscore the shuttered windows. I found several that i liked. I will list them and i want you to tell me if i should stay away from any of them and your opinion on what ones are best to worst to use: golden barberry, crimson pygmy barberry, wintergreen boxwood,winter gem boxwood, compact japanese holley, hellers japanese holley. If you say they are all ok to use under the windows i will make my choice and go with it but need your opinion on all of them first in case i should stay away from any of them. thanks chad...See MoreHelp for a very challenging dilemma!
Comments (11)You didn't ask for advice about anything other than replanting, but like the previous posters I feel it is a necessary deviation to address the magnitude of the insult here. Your neighbour may indeed be making things very easy on himself relative to the damage he did. Some context is, in my view, necessary. Not just why he felt compelled to cut down your trees, but also what your legal rights are. If the cost of a cordial relationship is being a doormat, it may not be worth it. I've been on the opposite side of a tree situation - not that I cut the offending behemoth down, but I would have done so quite happily. My neighbours had a tree that was not respecting property lines and that was impacting my house and property in myriad ways and theirs not at all (thank the wind for that among other things). They were unconcerned by the trauma the tree was causing us and would have been well served if they'd come home from work one day to find it removed. My story ended well when they sold the property to more reasonable people who could see that a 30-foot wide, 60-foot tall conifer did not belong on a 25-foot lot, especially not a metre from the property line. In the throes of my conflict with the previous owners, I discovered there is a large amount of case law pertaining to situations like this. I agree that before agreeing to any remediation, you should have a reasonable estimate of the assessed value, and know what the courts generally award in situations like this. Perhaps you have an on-line legal database like our Canadian one at Canlii.org - you might even find news stories on the subject by doing some internet searching. Just because the trees were removed without due process does not mean you need to resolve the situation like that. If you don't want to escalate things by hiring lawyers, you could each hire someone to give you an estimate of the value and negotiate from there. And: document, document, document. I also think your neighbour should be responsible for a SUCCESSFUL replanting done to your standards. Given the conditions, you don't want to agree to a midsummer delivery of unsuitable trees badly planted, and have him consider the situation rectified no matter what the ultimate fate of the trees is. There is also the work of nursing the new trees through adolescence. By the way, if those trees were doing well there, why not replant the same kind? KarinL...See Moresingle mom pool build charlotte nc! desperately in need of help!
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