h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today I have been ripping up weeds from the spaces between the concrete tiles; cutting back the vines and ivy that run all along, over, round, and down the garden wall, and then out over the tiles; dicing with death with the brambles that are hidden in that lot; and generally getting intimidated by some unbelievable thorny dog-rose type of an affair that grows through the wall from my neighbour's garden.

God I hate gardening with an absolute passion.

It set me thinking as to what I use my garden (back yard is actually a more accurate term) for. The answer is absolutely nothing. It's primary role in life is to stop my house being a back-to-back house with the people who live in the next street!

Then I thought when was the last time you went into your garden prior to today. Well I reckon it was back in late May when I was...

"ripping up weeds from the spaces between the concrete tiles; cutting back the vines and ivy that run all along, over, round, and down the garden wall, and then out over the tiles; dicing with death with the brambles that are hidden in that lot; and generally getting intimidated by some unbelievable thorny dog-rose type of an affair that grows through the wall from my neighbour's garden."

...and that is the only other time that I've been out there this year.

You could always hire someone to do it

I've got a similar problem to cope with in my house which I'm about to move back into after three years of letting it out. My tenants never bothered to chop the big bushes or trees back and so I now need a machete to get anywhere in the back garden.

I think anyone would hate the sort of gardening you refer to.

Use weedkiller peridodically, then you wouldn't have this problem if it really is just paving slabs out there.

Personally I found on eventually buying my own house that after the intial period of cutting down rampany brambles and the like that I got rid of them and got more manageable plants. Then I found it a source of pride to keep it looking nice and eventually got hooked on it. I now really enjoy my gardening and find it not too much work providing one keeps on top of it (which isn't all that difficult).
I think I'm just gradually turning into an old man

Cover the whole lot with gravel and shingle and bung a bunch of cacti in the ground. Voila - zero maintenance garden, except for covering them with gardening fleece on the coldest winter nights. The relatively mild climate of Brighton should support a good number of the more hardy species

Nah, doesn' work. You still get little weeds coming through the gravel (been there done that) and if you don't keep on top of it...

That's why you stick a membrane down under the whole shebang first.

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot"

Which still doesn;t wotk after a while, like I said, been there done that.

I tried all of these things on a gravelly area in my place and ended up putting grass down as it didn't seem any more work and looked a *lot* better.

But hey ho, each to their own.

Blimey, who put an offensive posting to this conversation?

Probably no-one; but SEF's on pre-mod.

Gravel wouldn't work at all. Practically every house in my section of the road and the road backing onto my house seems to have a cat. There is no way I want to be providing a glorified kitty-litter for the locals

I'm also strating to get rather concerned about the ivy that's growing up the gable end of my house. The plant itself, and my gable wall, is in someone elses garden. The problem is, they are never there when I want to talk to them about dealing with theproblem. I never get any response from letters and notes that I stick through their letter box.

For the most part I can deal with the ivy that comes around the gable wall and onto my property. A combintion of ladders and leaning out of windows does it fine.

What I can't deal with is that which has colonised the chimney pots and has encroached right across the roof. I would need professionals in to tackle that. But if I did that, it wouldn't address the root of the problem of the bloody great big ivy tree - it's gone well beyond a bush - that is growing in the non-resident neighbour's back yard, as it would all come back again within a year or so.

If they don't respond then you could escalate it to council level.

A mate of mine got ordered to cut down a hedge that was too big after his neighbours complained. Of course a letter warning them you're going to do this would be diplomatic.

I remember your garden GD - from what I recall it was a lovely place to sit in the evening sun - well it was once there were two white chairs there ...

What happened to the white chairs?

If you were not so anti gardening you could add some plants in pots but since they are not on your agenda you could always find some interesting sculptures or pots or stones to go in there.

I sit in my garden quite a lot - views of fields etc make it even easier

Have you thought about tipping some bleach over the wall?

Is that how you get verigated ivy?

Oops, I meant to say salt...

* giggles *

Does that help the flavour?

Mind you he is a good cook that GD - I am sure he could do something constructive with the Ivy ... It always amused me that GD had more ivy on his house than I did while my house was called Ivy Cottage

In clearing the stuff off of my part of the wall today - 9 bags in total - I have to say I'm thinking that I'm going to have to do something to stop the spread of this ivy.

Obviously I can't get it off the neighbour's wall myself, I don't have the experience with ladders etc. And I can't get a contracor in to do it, as I would be asking them to trespass on someone else's property. I think what I might do is hop over the wall and cut the plant's stem right down at soil level. Sod the fact that that is technically criminal damage.

If its that big you might have a job on your hands - I had to use an electric saw on the stuff on my back fence.

"And I can't get a contracor in to do it, as I would be asking them to trespass on someone else's property"

By law they have to allow you onto their property if you need to carry out works on yours - although obviously having problems with my neighbours I don't want to encourage other people to do things that might mean they have the same problem, I don't think you can just barge in when you feel like it.

It is possible that ivy can be a problem on houses - if you have weak mortar between bricks, etc, or it'll find any little crack and make it worse, so if it's as rampant as you say, you probably do need to get it looked at. Chimneys don't stay in the best of condition, especially if they are old enough not to have been built with a tv aerial in mind...

You say the neighbour is non-resident? If it's empty then they are breaking the law by allowing it to become a nuisance. It might be worth contacting your local council (one last letter - recorded delivery so you can see if it does get to who it should get to?).