Further to my thread from 4 years ago about my neighbour planting laurels in a stupid small stripe of land between our drives, my worst fears have come true. You can see what must be one of the roots lifting our drive in a line in one place. Original thread below - a few people said I was being a bit unfair / perhaps I was the inconsiderate neighbour…..sadly I’ve been proved right that next door is the tosser.
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/inconsiderate-neighbour-hedges/
Reading online he may be liable for the damage but that could be a long, griefy and expensive route to take.
Any ideas on actions? Bearing in mind we’ve completely fallen out with the bloke and his wife now - the same as he has fallen out with the neighbour the other side of him and the previous owners of our house. One common denominator there.
Can you slide a long thin maybe folding pruning saw down the edge of your drive border and cut through the roots?
Cut the roots.
Cut the roots
Might not work.
Laurels are Hardy.
As rick says, a folding pruning saw is pretty good for this sort of thing. Buy a cheap one as it'll knacker the blade quite quickly. You can also do it with long handles loppers if there is room. Not ideal for the plant but one or two roots probably won't hurt it. I've chopped plenty that were in the way and plants have been fine. I appreciate you might not be too worried about the health of the plants but better not to escalate the problems
What the others said.
And 👏 kayak
matt - are you referring to neighbours or laurel roots?
Surely this is the ideal frozen sausages, lawn and dog scenario?
Kayak 🤣
Cutting the roots might be an option - when he isn’t in. I’ve got either some loppers or I have one of those electric reciprocating saws which does a good job cutting roots when I’ve removed trees before. The roots can’t be down that deep hopefully if they’re lifting the tarmac - unless they’re lifting the compacted aggregate under the tarmac
Agent Orange. Or some more sensible way to kill the hedge down to its roots.
It’s too late now for you to start legal actions I suspect… so force them into a situation where they either tacitly accept your actions or they have to resort to legal hassle. Play them at their own game.
matt – are you referring to neighbours or laurel roots?
No point leaving any trace behind.
😜
I'd relax a bit mate. If thats your worst fears coming true then life's good 👍
@ashhh - if you’d spend £9k having your drive re-laid fairly recently I suspect you wouldn’t be that laid back about having loads of roots lift it and start to break up the tarmac…..
Reading online he may be liable for the damage but that could be a long, griefy and expensive route to take.
By the sounds of it there's not much of a relationship to protect/maintain so I'd begin going down the formal route personally, what have you got to loose?
Cut the roots. Cut them again every year.
Frozen sausages and a mallet.
If you're going to dig down and prune the roots I would install a root barrier at the same time.
Cut the roots and then put a root guard /barrier down ? It's a plastic or metal board that just stops the roots ever growing through again
With Ashhh. If you've got £9k to chuck at a tidy place to put a car then I'd say life is already pretty sweet.
Life is less sweet if some idiot is wrecking something you’ve worked hard for. If I’d done something to start damaging his block paving drive I don’t doubt I’d have him jumping up and down like a toddler on my doorstep (we’ve had this before over painting a fence).
Mate some people work seriously hard and don't have a pot to p*ss in. Either do something destructive or go down the legal route, there isn't a relationship worth saving either way. Sorry but I'm a bit tired of the middle-class problems on this forum. If it's not your drive it's Mattoutandabout moaning about his partner's parents wasting his inheritance on a cr*p van or a floody house.
Don't read the bloody threads then. 🤷♂️
Fair (basic) point but there's always the potential it could be useful, inspirational or funny. The STW forum is now mostly just a load of middle aged higher earners moaning about first world problems. I genuinely feel unwelcome these days.
Fair (basic) point but there’s always the potential it could be useful, inspirational or funny. The STW forum is now mostly just a load of middle aged higher earners moaning about first world problems. I genuinely feel unwelcome these days.
Considering I don’t think I’ve ever come across your username in all the years I’ve been here, if you’ve only just noticed that the forum is:
“now mostly just a load of middle aged higher earners moaning about first world problems.” then it can’t be very long. I have little sympathy or patience with someone who takes that attitude. 🤷🏼
Matt is the wrong target for your ire but your basic point is very valid. We do get a lot of folk moaning how tough it is while not realising how well off they are. Bugs the heck out of me but i can also be guilty
I feel quite proud to have been promoted to middle class.
if you’d spend £9k having your drive re-laid fairly recently
Well, that's the most depressing thing I've read for a while. For that money I'd be wanting a smart motorway system with gantries. Is that really an average cost these days or is your drive the size of an Asda car park?
I'd just cut the roots while he was in and watching if the relationship between you is as bad as you say.
If they're on your property i don't see the problem.
Just for clarity I'm not and never have been middle class.😉
"is your drive the size of an Asda car park?"
My mental image of a £9k driveway.
Damage from trees & vegetation isn't necessarily always considered to be negligence by the law. My neighbours trees damaged my house and they walked away with no comeback whatsoever.
There is a legal process that needs to be followed, where they have to be formally made aware there is a problem etc, so I would recommend getting an initial consultation from a solicitor and finding out how much it would be to draft a letter to get the process started (and that will hopefully scare him into removing the problematic plants without further legal wranglings anyway).
Otherwise collect dog poo in a paper bag, put it on his doorstep, light it on fire, ring the doorbell and leg it. He has no option but to stamp the fire out, and in the process gets dog poo on his slippers.
Drive isn’t that big no - just the cost of things is mental these days. It was done pre-Covid too - so I imagine it might cost even more now. It was digging up the existing tarmac for half of it and digging up a small bit of grass that was in a bad way and then prepping the whole lot and laying porous tarmac. We did want to do resin bound gravel but that was an order of magnitude higher in cost - as was block paving. Looked into imprinted concrete but every one of those drives near us has cracks in it.
My original post was just to ask for some advice on something I don’t know much about - which I thought would be fine in the chat area of a forum that has people from varying backgrounds and with a lot of knowledge and experience.
I like the dog poo idea - we have a dog so won’t be hard to collect - and the image of dog poo covered slippers on fire is a good one 🔥
As you have no relationship with him and he wont listen to reason, I'd just roundup the hell out of the flower bed and be done with it. You can shrug your shoulders and deny any knowledge if he ever talks to you about it.
As above, if you are going legal, then negligence may not work but there could be a right of action in either trespass or nuisance. The remedy would be the same, to make good and abate the damage.
If you don’t have an ongoing relationship anyway, I’d probably go legal. An arborist etc would probably write you a brief cause report for a couple of hundred pound then you could issue a small claim claim?
In the absence of having loads of spare cash I think I’m going to go with just cutting the roots that are going under the drive and see about sticking in some kind of root blocking membrane. Seems the lowest hassle and cost option. Thanks all 👍
Not sure how well roundup will work poured on the ground. I think it quickly degrades in soil. OTOH if you have access to a root and can drill a hole and pour stuff in, that should do the trick.
Roundup stump killer has to be applied to a cut stem. I use it for bamboo killing. Any dispute you have with your neighbour must be declared come time of house sale. Just saying.
If you don’t have an ongoing relationship anyway, I’d probably go legal.
You can have no relationship with a neighbour and still make it worse by going legal! If he was the sort of person to see sense and seek an amicable solution he would have resolved long before it got legal. He's either a sad anrgy man who will quite enjoy you going legal so he can get even more wound up and fight you or he's nutjob who believes he's 100% right about everything and you are out to get him (the sort of person who phones the Jeremy Vine show). Either could escalate into further trivial disputes, criminality, etc. Before you know it you've threatened him and the cops are round staking a statement about your public order offence and he's sitting chuckling to himself.
He might just be that person - he’s retired so has time on his hands too. Where as I have a hectic stressful job so I can’t afford to get into anything time consuming - otherwise he’ll drag me down to his level and beat me through experience as it were.
Some roots have a habit of growing another bush or tree once cut. We had this with a large root that was ruining the lawn. I cut it and a few month later it started sprouting shoots up along its length. So cut it, then rub glyphosate (the devils weedkiller) into the cut section of the root to properly kill it off.
The thing is there isn’t the room. It’s a completely daft piece of land to have planted such potentially massive plants in. Maybe it’s a foot wide or so between 2 drives - starting wider at one end and going down to a point where it meets the pavement. I’ve probably got at best 5 inches to place with our side of the laurels before it gets to our drive.
I might be able to get something a little smaller than pictured in if I dig a little trench …..but I’ll have to see how deep the roots go.
I would be digging a thin trench on your side of the boundary to locate the main roots. Cut those immediately to start with, applying glyphosphate to the cut roots might kill the plant, but probably not. And there may still be a live sucker of the plant underneath your side which can resprout, so apply to the cut end as well. It will probably be too obvious if you drench the whole plant in the stuff. Trimming the laurel now is not a good idea, it will encourage growth. Do it in summer, cut it right back to the boundary.
I reckon any barrier will need to be at least a foot deep, probably two, which might be a problem for you.
Putting a laurel in such a narrow bed is a real dick move.
I think I would attempt to spray the most destructive weed killer I could find on an especially windy day (as long as that wind is in the right direction). Something systemic.
The STW forum is now mostly just a load of middle aged higher earners moaning about first world problems.
Are you new here?
I think I would attempt to spray the most destructive weed killer I could find on an especially windy day
That would be very silly. Spraying should never be done on a windy day. It's dangerous to the person doing it and other living beings around.
Just cut the roots and add a barrier. Laurel isn't going to come back from a cut root it's not like bamboo or other suckering plants. It's not particularly fast growing but does get big so just keep trimming your side regularly. I expect he'll eventually realise he's planted the wrong thing when it gets too big on his driveway.
Don't forget to return the trimmings back to him.
Go full crazy neighbour and hack them down. Then form a pyre and burn them whilst dancing naked and praising the elder gods.
We've had laurels for 25 years. They need regular trimming. Just hacked off about 2 foot at one side as the hedge was getting quite thick - 4ft high, by 4ft deep. It looks bear on one side, but will soon grow back. Can't say we've had any issues with them lifting any tarmac but they aren't planted in a small space, and the roots have the gargen to go find water. I'd do as suggested and cut the roots causing damage, and keep your side well trimmed.
Have you considered getting a large quantity of salt in to keep your drive clear of ice over the winter months? You could even store it down one edge of the driveway near your property boundary.
Just make sure that it doesn’t get wet and soak into any soil where you might want anything to grow in the next year or two.
Might not work.
Laurels are Hardy.
That deserved more(cambe and wise)
You know what to do.
Would something like this let you dig a trench your side of the line then some sort of metal barrier as above. Or 18" square paving slabs laid vertically.
That deserved more(cambe and wise)
The jokes are coming at a Hale and Pace now.
I was thinking about something like that narrow grafting spade - nice and narrow but cuts deep, so fairly easy to work along with slightly overlapping cuts, which hopefully would slice through the roots. Work along one way then work back. Maybe find some steel offcuts from an engineering company, 2’x1’ and hammer them down into the slot you’ve cut with a lump hammer. A bit tedious but easier than trying to cut a trench. Pour something along the slot to encourage the cut roots to die and rot, the drive should gradually settle back down once the roots decay.
@irc - I’ve got a similar spade actually - I’d forgotten about that. I’ve used it for various fence post hole digging etc. it would probably just about go in the gap to get down to the roots I think. Nice idea. Not sure if I’ll get deep enough in the space I’ve got to get paving slabs in there though 🤔
@irc - I’ve got a similar spade actually - I’d forgotten about that. I’ve used it for various fence post hole digging etc. it would probably just about go in the gap to get down to the roots I think. Nice idea. Not sure if I’ll get deep enough in the space I’ve got to get paving slabs in there though 🤔
I've had to do this kind of thing before. That type of spade will be perfect. If the laurels have reached any significant size it is unlikely that you will be able to slice the roots with a spade. I would dig a spade width trench along the length of you drive. Start at the offending root first to get an idea what the going is like and how much graft the whole job will be. You will need to dig either side of the root and under it to get enough clearance to cut it using loppers or a saw. Cut a section of root out as wide as the trench to get enough room to get a root barrier in. Good luck!
Thanks Jordan - I don’t have much room to work with tbh - but hopefully enough to fit some kind of root blocking thing in. Will either lop or reciprocating saw said roots. Spade will go through small roots - but given the bulge in the drive I don’t think this is a small root
Yea, we had a couple of laurels, the roots get massive.
I'd be wary about heavy pruning as when we did ours it just encouraged it to put up new shoots from the roots. It's why we dug it out as it wasn't possible to keep it a sensible size.
If you come across one of the root suckers, you may need a hatchet to get through it. Remember you don't just need to sever the root, you need to do something to kill any suckers further down it underneath your drive, or it will just carry on growing merrily.
The severed root shouldn't keep growing without leaves above ground to nourish it. So if anything pops up just cut it off, the root will eventually die.
