Suggestions for neighboring site

kev_Makaveli

Hi Folks,

Long Story Short. We live beside a vacant site in the countryside. The Site is completely overgrown with Nettles and Briars. Neighbors say the site was purchased to build but planning lapsed and owner moved to the UK.

Last Summer I spent much of lockdown Trying to remove the briars that were choking my Hedge .

This weekend I've done the same thing for the 2nd time. First time was paddy's weekend. I've Dug up most of the Briars at the base of the hedge and taken the weed whacker and strimmed everything back about 5 - 6 feet from the hedge itself however I know its only a matter of Weeks until the place is engulfed with nettles and stuff.

I'm just wondering if there is anyone i can contact be it Council or other about clearing the site . I know its the countryside and briars etc is common but surly the site owner should have responsibility to maintain the Land .

Any advice would be welcomed .

Thanks

Best to leave alone. By all means cut anything on your own property, but you have no right at all to do anything with a neighbouring site.
The countryside isn't neat and tidy, thank god. Briars and nettles are wonderful in themselves and for wildlife, nature is taking a terrific hammering without more unnecessary destruction.
Learn to appreciate the natural world, it will do you a lot more good than worrying about something like this.

macraignil

Nettles and brambles are native plants that are valuable for wildlife so the legislation about what plants can be grown does not put limits on these plants as far as I am aware. The county council as far as I know will not intervene to clear privately owned land even it is inconvenient for you having things stretching from the site to try and grow in your garden. Since the plants you described are not listed as problem species I don't think the owners of the site are obliged to keep them under control. I live next to what was the garden of a now derelict farm house with strong growth of brambles and nettles as well as self sown trees which are mostly goat willow. I have tried to plant trees and larger shrubs on that side of the garden so they can stand up to some extent to the plants coming in from the derelict site which I think is good to leave as it is for the local wildlife. Strong growing ground cover plants like vinca and ajuga have also slowed the progress of the plants from the derelict garden area by allowing less bare soil for them to colonise. I walk the edge between this wilder area and my more cultivated garden every few weeks and cut down all the nettles and brambles that are trying to encroach on my own garden and have planted some trees there that I hope will help suppress the nettles and brambles in time but I would not want to get the full area cleared as I can see it is useful for the local wildlife that I like to see in my own garden area. Its also worth looking about the place for young brambles and nettles that have sprouted from seed to dig them out before they get more difficult to deal with. Not an easy thing to manage but I like gardening and actually think having areas devoted to wildlife close by is a good thing.

spose

I’d say your only option is as you’re doing. Try and maintain that break between the hedge and the wilderness. Might be better off with a hedge trimmer than a strimmer for dealing with the briars. If the owner ever decides to do something with the site they’re hardly going to start off the relationship by complaining about you keeping a few feet of weeds down.

Jim_Hodge

You're no different to my situation except the other side of my hedges are fields. Brambles, nettles, etc are part of the downside to not having a house and garden next door. It come with the territory. The fact that yours is a vacant site is immaterial. If it was in use for grazing animals you'd still be out there cutting back briars twice a year.

Zzippy

Could you put a bit of weed membrane down along the strip you've strimmed back to maintain a buffer between your garden and the rest of the site? Briars will still scramble over it but at least they can be cut back easily and you won't have to dig up that bit again.

blackbox

Have you looked into buying the site?

CelticRambler

I'm in the opposite situation: neighbour has a field that's blitzed, sprayed, ploughed and harrowed into an industrial wasteland and hedges are considered a waste of subventionable square metres; whereas I deliberately "cultivate" the re-wilding of my boundary. The neighbour is actually quite decent about things in general, and I'm hoping to convince him eventually to sell me a parcel of land at the back of my property, so I make an effort to keep my invasive brambles, roses and blackthorn in check. For the most part, it's an easy-enough job: I've left a bare strip on my side of the boundary line, and run the mower over it about once a month. Every so often (maybe twice a year), I'll take the hedge trimmer out and cut back the higher growth, and/or take the strimmer over the boundary line to remove anything that's got through the buffer zone.

It might feel like you're doing the neighbour's work for him if your hedge is right along the boundary; but in the fullness of time, if you keep a couple of metres clear on his side, you're unlikely to attract any bad feeling for a bit of "housekeeping" along the party line ... and sure if nobody does or says anything for another decade, you might be able to claim the extra two metres as your own. :cool:

macraignil

Zzippy wrote: »

Could you put a bit of weed membrane down along the strip you've strimmed back to maintain a buffer between your garden and the rest of the site? Briars will still scramble over it but at least they can be cut back easily and you won't have to dig up that bit again.

I don't understand what you expect a bit of weed membrane to do to help the situation described. You will not only get briars scrambling over it but a vigorous patch of brambles will also set down new plants right in the middle of it to set root and grow through it and make a tangled mess of plastic fibers and roots that would be very difficult to remove and damaging to the environment in the longer term.

Girl Geraldine

The Council would have no business going in doing anything on private land.
The only instance they would do so is if there is a dangerous structure, or perhaps a dangerous hole and all efforts to make the landowner do the work had failed. They would need a court order for it too.

Kevwoody

I would suggest putting up a sheep wire fence, and attach green storm netting on the field side of it. The briars will push up against it and you can trim the top of them at fence height. I've done this in the past and it works quite well.

listermint

I would have assumed metal blade strimmer two meter stretch once a year would be enough to just keep them in check .

Proper strimmer will make mince of them in minutes with little fuss. I wouldn't go beyond that with digging and the rest. Keep it simple small maintenance.

Zzippy

macraignil wrote: »

I don't understand what you expect a bit of weed membrane to do to help the situation described. You will not only get briars scrambling over it but a vigorous patch of brambles will also set down new plants right in the middle of it to set root and grow through it and make a tangled mess of plastic fibers and roots that would be very difficult to remove and damaging to the environment in the longer term.

I was referring to the tough woven Mypex membrane, brambles will not grow through this. You will get a loose mass of brambles on top alright, but because they will not be able to set root they will be much easier to remove.

cena

Maybe contact your lawyer and see if they can find the owner of the site and send a letter asking if they could get someone to come in and tidy it up

hirondelle

If the ground is level enough, and the growth is still ow, I would go in with the mower and maintain a verge- less effort than using a strimmer. The neighbour in England won't be upset.

Girl Geraldine

cena wrote: »

Maybe contact your lawyer and see if they can find the owner of the site and send a letter asking if they could get someone to come in and tidy it up

Waste of time really. If the owner is disinterested to let it go so overgrown they won't be bothered. No to mind that a solicitor will charge a handy few hundred euros for that.

Anyway, anyone can find the registered owner for a fiver on PRA website at Landdirect.ie.
That'll give you the name and registered address.

hirondelle

Girl Geraldine wrote: »

Waste of time really. If the owner is disinterested to let it go so overgrown they won't be bothered. No to mind that a solicitor will charge a handy few hundred euros for that.

Anyway, anyone can find the registered owner for a fiver on PRA website at Landdirect.ie.
That'll give you the name and registered address.

Good advice- with the slight proviso that Landdirect only shows the last registered owner on the system, it may be out of date if the land has been sold in the last couple of years.

macraignil

Zzippy wrote: »

I was referring to the tough woven Mypex membrane, brambles will not grow through this. You will get a loose mass of brambles on top alright, but because they will not be able to set root they will be much easier to remove.

I don't agree with you that brambles will not grow through this type of material. I have seen this material with a variety of weeds growing right through it but maybe it was just people who did not clear the weeds off the surface quickly enough. Not something I would put near my own garden or recommend anyone else to use.

Zzippy

macraignil wrote: »

I don't agree with you that brambles will not grow through this type of material. I have seen this material with a variety of weeds growing right through it but maybe it was just people who did not clear the weeds off the surface quickly enough. Not something I would put near my own garden or recommend anyone else to use.

Weeds can root into it if there is organic material left on top, they will not grow through it unless there are tears or holes in it. Just because you don't like it in your garden does not mean someone else should not use it if weed suppression is their primary intent.

hirondelle

Zzippy wrote: »

Weeds can root into it if there is organic material left on top, they will not grow through it unless there are tears or holes in it. Just because you don't like it in your garden does not mean someone else should not use it if weed suppression is their primary intent.

I have it down in a few part of my garden- after two years, horsetail is coming straight through it at will (I live beside some bog) and barren strawberry is growing on it with the roots running straight into the ground (which I am constantly removing). I got the "industrial" version of it, so i personally don't think of it as a longterm weed barrier. I have it doubled over as well but once a weed can get through one layer, the second layer is redundant. Just my experience of it. Hence my suggestion of mowing a cordon sanitaire on the neighbouring land.

macraignil

Zzippy wrote: »

Weeds can root into it if there is organic material left on top, they will not grow through it unless there are tears or holes in it. Just because you don't like it in your garden does not mean someone else should not use it if weed suppression is their primary intent.

So you think exposed membrane like this next to site full of uncontrolled brambles will not get tears in it over time. As I have commented earlier in this thread I think just regularly trimming the weeds on the edge of the vacant site and being careful to remove seedlings that spread to the garden from there when they are young would be the easiest option.



I am not saying your suggestion is not likely to work because of what I like in my own garden but from what I have seen and learned from the use of these membranes having worked in landscaping and gardening for a number of years. They do not offer a good long term solution to weeds particularly when you are dealing with vigorous brambles which will rip holes in this membrane very quickly and when the nettles and brambles grow through these holes the land owner who opened this thread will be left with a much more difficult mess to deal with from what I have seen in different sites in the past. You can offer them bad advice if you like but don't be surprised if someone else points out that this is what you are doing.

Calahonda52

farmer grade weed killer designed for this problem, rinse and repeat

JeffKenna

Calahonda52 wrote: »

farmer grade weed killer designed for this problem, rinse and repeat

We should be protecting our natural habitat, not destroying.

hirondelle

Calahonda52 wrote: »

farmer grade weed killer designed for this problem, rinse and repeat

Would you be happy if your neighbour sprayed this up against your garden boundary on a repeated basis?

the_pen_turner

hirondelle wrote: »

Would you be happy if your neighbour sprayed this up against your garden boundary on a repeated basis?

Better than having all the dirt coming in through the boundary.


Either way I would cut it back and put it on fresh growth with a brush so other stuff will still live.
Then plant wild flowers and bushes that are both decent looking, easy to control and good for nature

standardg60

CelticRambler wrote: »

I'm in the opposite situation: neighbour has a field that's blitzed, sprayed, ploughed and harrowed into an industrial wasteland and hedges are considered a waste of subventionable square metres; whereas I deliberately "cultivate" the re-wilding of my boundary. The neighbour is actually quite decent about things in general, and I'm hoping to convince him eventually to sell me a parcel of land at the back of my property, so I make an effort to keep my invasive brambles, roses and blackthorn in check. For the most part, it's an easy-enough job: I've left a bare strip on my side of the boundary line, and run the mower over it about once a month. Every so often (maybe twice a year), I'll take the hedge trimmer out and cut back the higher growth, and/or take the strimmer over the boundary line to remove anything that's got through the buffer zone.

It might feel like you're doing the neighbour's work for him if your hedge is right along the boundary; but in the fullness of time, if you keep a couple of metres clear on his side, you're unlikely to attract any bad feeling for a bit of "housekeeping" along the party line ... and sure if nobody does or says anything for another decade, you might be able to claim the extra two metres as your own. :cool:

Indeed, as a certain Newstalk presenter might attest to:)

49801

Good free grazing for a goat

kev_Makaveli

Thanks For the Advise folks.

I'll Keep doing what I'm doing and Just keep it back a about 6 - 8 Feet from the Hedging. I've Got the Ground even enough so I went over it with the mower at the weekend.

Don't wanna go at it With any spray's as I don't want to Risk Killing my own Mature hedge as well as the new hedge I've planted further down the Garden.

During the summer its not too bad as I can get out once or twice a month and strim it back. However its the Crappy Winter Weather where it really begins to grow.