Never Seen Daylight
Gargening Etiquette: Do You Follow The Rules?

Writer: Kelly Moore, a freelance writer based in Des Moines, Iowa

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Gardening Etiquette: Do You Follow The Rules?

 Gardening Etiquette: Do You Follow The Rules?

Neighbors who don’t mind their gardening Ps and Qs have long been the plight of the urban gardener. While historic, metropolitan neighborhoods are quaint, their characteristically close quarters often mean shared gardens – and shared weeds, rodents and invasive plants. 

While many gardeners follow a certain gardening etiquette, a refresher course is always a good idea. Read on for simple rules to keeping your reputation as pristine as your garden.

Trees and Shrubs and Hedges, Oh My!
Not only do these plants add height and texture to a garden, they also provide coveted shade. But urban gardeners need to be aware of how planting one of these tall treasures will impact their neighbors.

One exercise urban gardeners must do when planting a tree or shrub is to get inside their neighbors home – either visually or literally – and examine the current views. While they may not be panoramic, they likely provide sunset vistas or alert the neighbor to arriving guests.

Because they are great for garden boundaries, hedges are often planted on or near the property lines of an urban garden. Gardener Anne Stotesbery, co-owner of Ladera Vineyards in Napa Valley, Calif., reminds gardeners to anticipate what their hedge may look like several years into its residency. “Your neighbor may not maintain his side of a hedge the way you do. While you keep your side trimmed, the other may become untamed,” warns Stotesbery.

Flowers and Other Plantings
Cindy Krezel, director of development at Planting Field Arboretum State Historic Park in New York and the author of Kids’ Container Gardening, offers this absolute for gardening behavior: Don’t plant anything that will encroach on your neighbor’s property.

Plants to avoid along property lines include ivy, trumpet vine, butterfly bush, most grasses and the worst offender – bamboo. If bamboo is a must-have for a particular garden, there are some non-invasive varieties of bamboo that can be found with diligent research.

This rule not only protects neighboring gardens from creeping plants, it protects the gardener. In most states, homeowners have the right to remove plants or roots invading their property. And not everyone understands healthy pruning.

Having worked in a garden center for many years, Krezel has been consulted on numerous scenarios within what she calls “garden warfare.” One of the worst she cites is the time a customer had a neighbor pull out her 40-year-old peony tree because it grew over the property line.

When Colleen Dieter, owner of Red Wheelbarrow Plant Care and founder of online gardening club GrowingPleasures.com, took a job maintaining a landscape for a very experienced and well-known gardener in Austin, Texas, she didn’t expect the vicious pruning behavior of a neighbor.

“Despite the fact my client’s xeric wildscape had won awards and was even featured on a garden tour, she regularly received letters from her neighborhood association stating that her yard was unkempt,” says Dieter.

“The next door neighbor was particularly vicious, often pulling up plants or cutting them down without my client’s consent. When this neighbor found out that my client had moved, he spent an entire day hacking down huge shrubs with a dull woodworking saw. I arrived on the scene a few days after it happened and was appalled at the carnage.” 

Dieter advises respecting differing tastes. “While one gardener’s naturalistic yard is her Garden of Eden, a neighbor’s manicured patch of lawn and topiary shrubs is her mini Versailles.”

Seasonal Seemliness
Come autumn, complaints of neighbors who do not rake their leaves can be heard in all corners of an urban neighborhood. The endless cycle of raking that comes from neighboring leaf-blowers or leaf-ignorers can be frustrating enough to breed tension between otherwise friendly homeowners. Raking can be contagious, as people try to “keep up with the Jones’,” so setting a good example is a smart practice.

“Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree,” says Stotesbery. As the seasons change and fruit begins to ripen, fruit tree owners must keep an eye on their crop. Fallen fruit will eventually send out the kind of aromas that attract pests and incite neighbors, so keeping yards free of fruit is a good practice.

Weed and Pest Control
While most gardeners are pros at plucking pesky weeds from their beds, they often overlook other areas of the property, such as behind and beside garages or storage sheds or along fence lines. These are breeding grounds for encroaching weeds and need to be paid special attention.  

Moles don’t pay attention to property lines, Stotesbery points out. “My daughter was fighting a mole problem in her backyard with a smoke bomb. After setting it off she heard one of the children yell to their mom that smoke was coming out of the grass.” It’s a good idea to warn neighbors before forging a battle with pests.

Going with the Flow
“Drainage from one yard often carries unwanted debris,” warns Dieter. “Herbicide drift can kill neighboring plants, and broad-spectrum insecticides can kill insects beneficial to a neighbor’s garden,” says Dieter.

Connecticut gardener Dianne M. Daniels, an image consultant living in Norwich, knows first-hand the problems vigorous weed control can cause between neighbors. After moving into a historic home built in 1850s, Daniels began aggressively spraying weeds along the top of a stone wall on the side of the home.
“I was rewarded with dead weeds, but had created a disgruntled neighbor in the process. She told me my enthusiastic spraying had damaged the plants she was growing on the other side of the fence,” says Daniels.
The gardeners worked it out through polite conversation and division of labor.
“After some heart-to-heart talks and apologizing, we developed a team effort in fighting the weeds, much to her pleasure and mine,” says Daniels. “We are now gardening friends who share plants and the work of keeping the ‘common areas’ weed-free without the use of chemicals.”

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Iowa gardener Shereen Kos, a cost analyst and Master Gardener, advises neighbors to check on property lines before assuming the space immediately on the other side of the fence is fair game.

“One of our neighbors believes his property goes right up to the fence,” says Kos. “In fact, about a foot and a half on his side is our land. Yet, he stores sticks, tree limbs and other materials, including leaf piles, right up next to the fence. All of this has a tendency to blow into our yard.”

Likewise, a fence owner needs to be cognizant of the troubles that may be arising on the other side of her fence, such as long grass or overzealous weeds. 

When it comes to fences, many gardeners are unaware of the etiquette rule governing placement. While we’d all rather look at the “good” side of the fence from our backyards, it’s not considered polite.

Keep it Down Over There!
Cindy Krezel, director of development at Planting Field Arboretum State Historic Park in New York and the author of Kids’ Container Gardening, has a good rule of thumb when it comes to noise: no racket before 8 a.m. at the earliest.

“Leaf blowers, lawn mowers, weed whackers and chain saws before dawn are passive aggressive behavior destined to come back to haunt you,” say Krezel.

Speaking of noisy backyard gear, neighbors often share their power tools, bringing about another good rule of green thumb: always return tools in the same or better condition as when you borrowed them.

Be the Bigger Gardener
Communication and forgiveness are key to neighborly relationships, experts say. Letting neighbors know of upcoming gardening tasks, such as spreading compost, spraying herbicides or operating noisy tools, can squash bad feelings before they have a chance to grow.

Forgiving neighbors for their gardening faux pas may be difficult, but it allows gardeners to continue living in peace. And who knows, what is once offensive, may someday work to your advantage. Consider this story from Stotesbery:

“We have a beautiful view of the Napa Valley western hills from our back yard. I was somewhat dismayed when a neighbor lined his driveway with olive trees, cutting right through that view. However, the next year another neighbor built a home just beyond the olive trees. Now those trees screen our view of the new house.”

Stotesbery says the best way to remind yourself and others of the need for gardening etiquette is to consider your garden as an extension of the home. The same respect and care you show inside the rooms of a neighbor’s home should be the same shown in their outdoor quarters.

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