Any diplomats on here?

[Graye]

If so, can you feed me some lines to help sort this out please?

We are back in the UK for a few months. We probably only spend about 3 months a year here in total, sometimes in a block and sometimes just for a few weeks at a time. Our little cottage is in a side yard (you really need to know Whitby to understand how this works) and we have a gorgeous shared garden. Our "sharees" are also not here all the time, they come for odd weekends in the spring and summer only. During that time they tend to take care of general garden maintenance, lawn mowing etc. Whenever we are back I do my bit too, weeding, planting, pruning etc. It has worked reasonably well since they bought the place about four years ago and they are in fact really nice people. We tend to particularly look after stuff on "our side" of the garden and they do the same on "their side" although there isn't a hard and fast rule.

However, I've been having a good prune and weed all over the garden today and discovered that whereas some of the bushes have been given a severe hacking back but are fortunately sprouting merrily, a bush which I'm particularly fond of and which faces our living room window (I don't know what it's called but it has pretty bluish purple flowers like mini lilacs with lovely dark green leaves) has been hacked from a five feet tall bush to about an 18" tall stump and looks decidedly sorry for itself, if not downright dead. It was particularly gorgeous last summer and I don't think it has just died of its own accord. And the garden seems to be going from a lovely, slightly overgrown cottage garden to a regimented garden centre advert!

I don't want to create problems but I'm seriously miffed about this and wonder how to go about suggesting she really does need to consult us before she does anything quite so drastic again. She has our email address and is in fact in contact quite often to tell me such mundane things as the frost had cracked some of the flower pots on the steps up to our door. So there isn't really any excuse for not letting us know or consulting us.

Anyone got any tactful ideas please? I would hate to start a huge neighbour war but I think I need to make sure she knows we have an input too.

[pumpy]

I s'pose that "one mans meat, is another mans poison", applies here. (maybe your neighbours thought that they were doing a favour by giving the bush a severe pruning............ i cut some of ours back quite severely, last autumn, as they were getting quite woody/leggy, & they all have loads of new shoots down to ground-level). Next time you are both in residence why not share a meal, have a few vinos, & share thoughts/ideas about the garden. Alternatively, i s'pose you could just punch their lights out!!!

[mrsflibble]

sounds like a budlea plant to me, if it is don't panic. they are incredibly resillient.

[Thomzo]

Hi
Oh dear, yes you really don't want to start a war. Have you considered that it might have died of its own accord? I don't know about Whitby but we had really heavy snow a few weeks ago which lasted for over a week. Very unusual around here and several shrubs were badly affected.

How about casually mentioning that you were sad to see that the bush had "died" (don't mention anything about it being hacked back). Say that you really liked it and ask if it succumbed to the frost. That, at least, should elicit a response about why it was cut back. Then you can suggest buying a new one between you - if she knows what it was. You might then be able to have a chat about they style of garden that you like and agree a level of neatness. It may be that if they aren't there regularly, they prune back hard when they are there to keep things tidy.

I strongly suggest that you don't say anything immediately. Part of the art of diplomacy is not to go off at the deep end while your emotions are strong. Wait until you have calmed down a bit and then make out that the conversation is a casual one. Either wait until you bump into them or until you have to call or e-mail about something else, then you can tag the comment on as an after thought. They are much more likely to be defensive if you seem upset or angry about it. If they think that you are relaxed they are more likely to be honest.

Good luck
Zoe

[Graye]

I've checked online and it's a ceanothus. We DO have a buddleia too and that's well trimmed but looking good. The ceanothus should be a late spring flowering bush but I can't see this one doing anything, not even a little sprout! It was very cold a few weeks ago but Whitby is a strange place - it rarely snows here even when the moors are feet deep with the stuff and even when the wind is howling up the estuary off the North Sea the "yard" gardens are sheltered by all the buildings around. I understand the odd temperatures are something to do with the sea being so close. I even have a few things growing in the garden which I brought back from Andalucia so it's generally amazingly mild here.

Fortunately the earliest they will arrive is next weekend so I may have cooled down by then. I agree the casual approach will probably be best if I can pull it off. They aren't the "sit down in the garden with a glass of wine" type unfortunately so I will have to try another approach. I suppose I should really just shrug and be grateful that the garden is tended when we are away but I'm struggling to be so phlegmatic at the moment!

[Millymollymandy]

Ceanothus aren't terribly hardy but that doesn't explain why they pruned it back so much.

[pumpy]

Hi Graye, we also have Ceanothus, which was here when we moved in. After the really cold start to the year, i noticed that a lot of the foliage was turning brown(dieing?), when i looked it up in a book of shrubs that i have, it said that Ceanothus needs to be in a really sheltered spot, with temperatures, preferably no less than 10c/50f. Also they do not like a chalky soil (guess what our soil-type is). It does seem to be recovering quite nicely now tho'....... maybe your neighbours thought it was a lost cause ( have they been there recently?), & so, cut it back for that reason.

[Thomzo]

There are lots of different types of ceanothus. I have a big brute of a tree which looks lovely but is absolutely huge. I regularly chop complete limbs off it but new shoots grow back very happily. Don't give it up as a lost cause just yet. It might come back yet.

Zoe

[Graye]

No I won't give up on it. It LOOKS well past its best but I thought I might try cutting into one of its little stumps to see if there are signs of life. It was so hardy and vigorous last summer that I can't believe it managed to die and be chopped back in such a short time. The cut marks don't look new, it was probably done last autumn. It's in a small sloping bed with lots of other smaller shrubs and plants around it. I can't believe I hadn't noticed it was missing until yesterday. I love the cloudy blue colours when it's in bloom so I'll really miss them this year.

I suppose to be charitable she may have mistaken it for an offshoot of another bush alongide. I'm not exactly sure what it is, probably some sort of box. It's stiff and dense and does need controlling, something I last did last summer. Other than reashaping a little it didn't need any work this year. On the other hand its evergreen so hard to mix them up and as the "trunk" on the ceanothus is about 3" in diameter its hardly a rogue shoot. I suppose I can always buy another but I hate plant vandalism!

[Tay]

As Thomzo says, there are different types, and some are hardier than others. You said it flowers in late spring, is cloudy blue and has a fairly thick stem (rather than a ground-covering type). If it is quite slow growing, then you might just be lucky. It sounds like one we have in France; this accidentally got cut by the neighbouring farmer's grass cutter - it survived the ordeal. Our glorious ceanothus concha which has vivid cornflower blue flowers, survived the trip from England to France, was planted, then uprooted by a mole (I presume), flourished in a huge pot, only to get stolen when we went away for a short while. I can understand your frustration; ceanothus is my favourite shrub.

[Graye]

So they arrived for the weekend last night. This morning I saw Sarah heading up the garden towards the ceanothus stump, saw in hand.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to remember all the diplomatic suggestions and dashed out to ask her what the &*!? she thought she was going to do. It turns out she doesn't like ceanothus bushes and had taken it on herself to chop down the very beautiful and perfectly healthy one of which I was very proud. As they can't even SEE this one from their window I find this rather weird. Anyway, after a rather full and frank exchange of views she had the grace to apologise and offer to buy a new one to replace the one she has butchered.

After years of serious confrontation in my work I delight in being very laid back and easygoing. I think she was rather shocked to find I have a very bolshie streak!

[Millymollymandy]

so that's that sorted then! It does seem a strange thing, in a shared garden, to decide to do something radical like that to a perfectly healthy shrub without discussing it with you first.

[Rosendula]

And you had every right to be bolshie. It's one thing looking after each others patch, but to destroy things that don't belong to you is wrong. My next door neighbour leans over the fence every year and lops the elder bushes down - just after they've flowered. It gets me so cross because I tell her every year that I like to make elderberry wine and jam and cordial, but every year she lops them. She doesn't even prune them, just attacks them with shears. The position of the bushes means I get a bit of shade in my garden which is perfect for LO when it's hot. They don't shade my neighbour's garden at all, so what's the problem?

[Tay]

Bizarre lady - not liking ceanothus. I'd be utterly furious in the same situation.

Rosendula, perhaps you could speak with your neighbour before the elder starts to flower to try to make sure she doesn't do it again. You could always threaten her with legal action; assuming that they are on your land. I'd be very cross indeed; she's not only wasting a resource, but shade too.

[prison break fan]

My next door neighbour also leans over my fence and cut all my shrubs, I have confronted him several times, which I absolutely hate doing, but he always says he is just helping me! I hate him!!!!We give each other Christmas presents each year, and I always take trouble to find the right thing for him, and this year he gave me an out of date bottle of Martini, which I know he won at the whist drive, so if anyone has any suggestions as to what to do with it? pbf