mander - Posted - 05/25/2024:  06:42:27

In my previous life, I was married to a landscaper. The first question he would ask a new potential client was, "Do you own the property in question?" It is shocking how often the answer was, "No." And appalling how often people would say "yes" and be lying. My husband would look up the address to confirm.

It isn't that I don't have opinions about other people's yards, it is, unless something on the property is actually causing a hazard, I keep those opinions to myself. I would never dream of sneaking over to a neighbor's yard while they were out of town and remove a tree. Or a dandelion. Seriously? Did you just wake me up at two in the morning because there is a dandelion in your neighbor's yard?

That said, I rent. I am fully aware I garden at my landlord's pleasure. The hobby is mine, the plants are mine, the labor and expense are mine, but the property, the liability, is his. I have to respect his wishes. Period.

Because I am seen out in the yard and not him, people tend to think that I am either the landowner, or I am paid to do the yard work. They are horrified to learn that neither is the case. It never ceases to amaze me some of the opinions others express. In case you are wondering, no, geraniums are not weeds, I will not be pulling them out soon. No, the weedy patch at the end of the street is NOT my responsibility to tend to, it belongs to the neighbors, go talk to them. I'm sorry you are allergic to that plant, it is NOT in the public right of way, so don't touch it. Do NOT even think about suggesting your cat has fleas because it walked by my garden. No! No! And double NO!

Tell me what to do with the yard that is not mine and I will tell you what to do with your leaf blower. Grrrrr....

STUD figmo Al - Posted - 05/25/2024:  07:00:07

Tecknicly...

Once you plant thos flowers..they belong to the land owner i think..

mike gregory - Posted - 05/25/2024:  07:29:55

Someone wiser than I once said:

"Opinions are like a[rectal sphincter]s. Everyone has one, and you are not OBLIGATED to be interested in any of them."



As to who OWNS the flowers:

There was once an interesting case, (maybe true, maybe legendary) where the LAW said that if a tenant planted food crops, they could not be evicted until the crops had ripened and could be harvested.

So the sneaky tenant planted OAK TREES, and figured they could live there 20 or 30 YEARS without paying rent.

Owen - Posted - 05/25/2024:  07:41:17

The people in HoTV, OR are "horrified" by somebody other than the landowner or a paid gardner doing something as ho-hum as gardening and/or yardwork?!?!?!? 

Occasionally I briefly kibitz or exchange pleasantries with people walking by, but [so far] it's all pretty low-key. 

Tongue-in-cheek, I guess it's no wonder left-coasters are sometimes viewed ... ah, you know the rest..........   .   

Vive l'ouest-central Man-ee-toe-bah beautiful???

reubenstump - Posted - 05/25/2024:  10:06:02

I tend to try to live and let live, in a non-judgemental way.  From time to time I fail. Welcome to being human, eh?

Story one

A neighbor at my previous house was a nice guy. He'd mow part of my yard for me sometimes (I had an on-call job) and I gave him tomatos and lettuce in season, which he loved.  Last year I noticed tomatos disappearing when they got close to ripe. It wasn't squirrels, birds, or any other of the usual suspects. Then one day I saw him walk into my garden, pick two tomatos, and proudly show them to his son. No wonder I wasn't getting any. 



I put a lock on the garden. Months later he asked me about the lock. I wanted to say "How do you know there's a lock on my garden? You can't see it from your property." But we made up. I clarified that he could have stuff if he asked and I approved.  Also, he was 80 years old, so may have forgotten previous discussions on the subject, or just lost track of boundaries.

Story two

At my new place I'm letting the "grass" grow wild. Some is up to my chest. I've had two neighbors offer to mow it. 

But I've got all sorts of little wild flowers popping up, which I love, and I plowed about 1/4 acre to start putting in a wild meadow, which I will hopefully seed soon.

You can come and help with the labor anytime, and even take some tomatos. 

Anywho - we're all human and have our own ideas of how things should be.  We're not always right (there are often local laws, HOAs, etc., which supersede our opinions), nor do we always agree.

Edited by - reubenstump on 05/25/2024 10:15:10

Texasbanjo - Posted - 05/25/2024:  11:48:52

I'm a homeowner and the land the house sits on and the ground around it is mine. I bought it, therefore it's mine to do with as I please so long as I don't violate any ordinances.



I would love to have a beautiful lawn, but my across the street neighbors don't care for theirs and consequently it's knee deep ... really! .... in weeds and guess where the seeds go when the wind blows. Right, on my yard. So, if you want to get technical, the neighbors own more of my yard than I do and get free weed control and free watering of all the weeds they send to me.



My neighbors next to them have cats, lots of cats, feral cats. They allow those cats to run wild (allow is not the right word) and those cats come over and make my yard their bathroom. Yuck.



My neighbors next door have 3 dogs who also think my pretty green (sometimes weedy) grass is wonderful place to leave a deposit at least a few times a week. Yuck.

High school kids come by and dump their empty soda cans and plastic items on my yard, along with other trash that blows in.  Guess who gets to clean it up?



So, although I own the land, it's not mine, it seems to belong to all human or animal.

Edited by - Texasbanjo on 05/25/2024 11:51:27

ChunoTheDog - Posted - 05/25/2024:  12:19:33

quote:

---

Originally posted by Texasbanjo

I'm a homeowner and the land the house sits on and the ground around it is mine. I bought it, therefore it's mine to do with as I please so long as I don't violate any ordinances.



I would love to have a beautiful lawn, but my across the street neighbors don't care for theirs and consequently it's knee deep ... really! .... in weeds and guess where the seeds go when the wind blows. Right, on my yard. So, if you want to get technical, the neighbors own more of my yard than I do and get free weed control and free watering of all the weeds they send to me.



My neighbors next to them have cats, lots of cats, feral cats. They allow those cats to run wild (allow is not the right word) and those cats come over and make my yard their bathroom. Yuck.



My neighbors next door have 3 dogs who also think my pretty green (sometimes weedy) grass is wonderful place to leave a deposit at least a few times a week. Yuck.

High school kids come by and dump their empty soda cans and plastic items on my yard, along with other trash that blows in.  Guess who gets to clean it up?



So, although I own the land, it's not mine, it seems to belong to all human or animal.

---

build a fence

Texasbanjo - Posted - 05/25/2024:  14:03:20

quote:

---

Originally posted by ChunoTheDog

quote:

---

Originally posted by Texasbanjo

I'm a homeowner and the land the house sits on and the ground around it is mine. I bought it, therefore it's mine to do with as I please so long as I don't violate any ordinances.



I would love to have a beautiful lawn, but my across the street neighbors don't care for theirs and consequently it's knee deep ... really! .... in weeds and guess where the seeds go when the wind blows. Right, on my yard. So, if you want to get technical, the neighbors own more of my yard than I do and get free weed control and free watering of all the weeds they send to me.



My neighbors next to them have cats, lots of cats, feral cats. They allow those cats to run wild (allow is not the right word) and those cats come over and make my yard their bathroom. Yuck.



My neighbors next door have 3 dogs who also think my pretty green (sometimes weedy) grass is wonderful place to leave a deposit at least a few times a week. Yuck.

High school kids come by and dump their empty soda cans and plastic items on my yard, along with other trash that blows in.  Guess who gets to clean it up?



So, although I own the land, it's not mine, it seems to belong to all human or animal.

---

build a fence

---

I have a fence in the back  yard.   We can only have a 3' fence in the front yard and that wouldn't help either the weed or the cat problem.  The dogs might not jump it but they also might. 

steve davis - Posted - 05/25/2024:  18:17:32

I get whatever walks by the windows.Moose,deer,woodchucks.rabbits and the occasional bobcat.This is their yard,too.
No neighbor dogs or cats.We have rules about tending our pets.

donc - Posted - 05/25/2024:  19:29:25

Often people will rent and not feel obligated to do any simple yard work. The result is a house that looks like nobody cares. It makes ya wonder why such a person wouldn't just rent an apartment and save the extra money for other pleasures. In 1978 we sold our shoebox of a house in the older part of the city. The new owners eventually tore it down and built a monster house for what looked like a larger family. Today I'm sure it is renters. The front lawn looks like only the weeds survived. The front and back yards are full of crap that is too worthless for anyone to steel . Eventually this apathy can spread to the whole neighborhood.

Bill Rogers - Posted - 05/25/2024:  20:58:53

I always had a property maintenance clause in the leases I used. Failure to maintain the property would be grounds for eviction. …. I have also lived in cities that would send you a notice if your yard grew too high and wild. If you ignored it, the city would mow the lawn and send you a bill.

5B-Ranch - Posted - 05/25/2024:  22:56:47

I live in the woods seriously there’s timber land to my north six acres of our ten separate us from the road. There’s a stretch of woods in front that the deer have there’s fawns. My drive way is right at a quarter of a mile long. There’s no conveyances on how to keep our property. I like it that way oh and no neighbors within a quarter mile.

banjo bill-e - Posted - 05/26/2024:  10:03:51

A neighbor lady sent trimmers into my yard to cut down the shrubbery between out houses. I ran them off and informed her that I very much wanted that visual barrier between our houses.

Owen - Posted - 05/26/2024:  10:49:04

Don: " ... full of crap that is too worthless for anyone to steal."

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

Our backyard has a dividing hedge ... inside is lawn/shrubbery/garden, t'other side is garden storage shed, the shop, parking for the SurfSide, and my "crap too worthless for anyone to steal."  Just today I mounted a [salvaged] hose reel onto the back deck with brackets made from some of that crap [i.e. a couple of pieces of strap steel welded to the end brackets from discarded bed rails]. 

Edit: I just did a quick tally.  Aside from the remote reserves, we've lived in 7 or 8 places in NWT and 3 provinces ... so far we've not had any "bad" or particularly undesirable neighbours.  Where did we go wrong?? 

Edited by - Owen on 05/26/2024 10:52:22

5B-Ranch - Posted - 05/26/2024:  13:21:03

quote:

---

Originally posted by banjo bill-e

A neighbor lady sent trimmers into my yard to cut down the shrubbery between out houses. I ran them off and informed her that I very much wanted that visual barrier between our houses.

---

I can understand the wanting to keep shrubbery between your out houses but geeweez join us in the 21st century already. Your neighbor seems to a nosey person. 

steve davis - Posted - 05/26/2024:  16:43:43

Lawns going unmowed are fire hazards.If it's long enough near the house to "catch" it's needs to be cut.
My lower part away from the house is a foot high and is next on the list.First time this year for that spot.
New blade edge on the 60v e/mower will breeze through that acre.

steve davis - Posted - 05/29/2024:  13:47:00

I love the unquestioned stonewall.No wondering,there.

Paul R - Posted - 05/30/2024:  08:54:43

There are very few fences in our neighbourhood. One annoyance is the gardening companies that come weekly with their noisy mowers and gas-powered leaf blowers. As a friend back in T.O. once remarked, "There's such a shortage of skilled rakers these days."

We have a public right-of-way between us and a neighbour, but it has never been used and was overgrown - until they hired some doofus who cut down a bunch of trees when they replaced their raised septic bed, which we now have an unobstucted view of.

We had a neighbour in Toronto who put a fence on our property. We removed it and put one on the (surveyed) property line. End of dispute.

mander - Posted - 05/30/2024:  09:27:04

quote:

---

Originally posted by mike gregory

Someone wiser than I once said:

"Opinions are like a[rectal sphincter]s. Everyone has one, and you are not OBLIGATED to be interested in any of them."



As to who OWNS the flowers:

There was once an interesting case, (maybe true, maybe legendary) where the LAW said that if a tenant planted food crops, they could not be evicted until the crops had ripened and could be harvested.

So the sneaky tenant planted OAK TREES, and figured they could live there 20 or 30 YEARS without paying rent.

---

Hmmmmm....

where is this? :-)

Owen - Posted - 05/30/2024:  10:41:59

A cursory search comes up with info re. agriculture and farmland.  Eg. Ohio > farmoffice.osu.edu/blog/fri-06...part-land and Texas > agrilife.org/texasaglaw/2013/1...rminates/ 

The latter mentions the "doctrine of emblements," but [thankfully?] I gotta go refill the hummingbird feeder.  

mike gregory - Posted - 05/30/2024:  12:41:25

quote:

---

Originally posted by mander

quote:

---

Originally posted by mike gregory

Someone wiser than I once said:

"Opinions are like a[rectal sphincter]s. Everyone has one, and you are not OBLIGATED to be interested in any of them."



As to who OWNS the flowers:

There was once an interesting case, (maybe true, maybe legendary) where the LAW said that if a tenant planted food crops, they could not be evicted until the crops had ripened and could be harvested.

So the sneaky tenant planted OAK TREES, and figured they could live there 20 or 30 YEARS without paying rent.

---

Hmmmmm....

where is this? :-)

---

Haven't the froggiest idea.

Read it more than half a century ago

Did  NOT claim it to be True!!

doryman - Posted - 05/30/2024:  13:41:31

quote:

---

Originally posted by Texasbanjo

I'm a homeowner and the land the house sits on and the ground around it is mine. I bought it, therefore it's mine to do with as I please so long as I don't violate any ordinances.



I would love to have a beautiful lawn, but my across the street neighbors don't care for theirs and consequently it's knee deep ... really! .... in weeds and guess where the seeds go when the wind blows. Right, on my yard. So, if you want to get technical, the neighbors own more of my yard than I do and get free weed control and free watering of all the weeds they send to me.



My neighbors next to them have cats, lots of cats, feral cats. They allow those cats to run wild (allow is not the right word) and those cats come over and make my yard their bathroom. Yuck.



My neighbors next door have 3 dogs who also think my pretty green (sometimes weedy) grass is wonderful place to leave a deposit at least a few times a week. Yuck.

High school kids come by and dump their empty soda cans and plastic items on my yard, along with other trash that blows in.  Guess who gets to clean it up?



So, although I own the land, it's not mine, it seems to belong to all human or animal.

---

Oh, this made my laugh out loud. You're a good person, and neighbor, to take it with a sense of humor and resignation.