Have you ever heard of spite hedges? I hadn’t, until I read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald recently about shrubbery which is intended to block a neighbor’s view or their sunlight.
Usually these spite hedges are planted after a disagreement between neighbors. But perhaps it could just be that people like a bit of privacy in the back yard.
Certainly that was the case when we moved in. The back yard looked bare and we planted a few taller shrubs, buddleias that we brought with us from Orange, along the back fence.
When Mick regains his enthusiasm for gardening and the yard dries out after all the rain we’ve had, we plan to take the buddleias out, as we’ve found they don’t grow as well here as they did in Orange and look untidy. However, we will replace them with other flowering shrubs that will grow to fence high or a little taller. It’s just a matter of finding shrubs that are quick growing and that will flower but not with white flowers.
We also erected a trellis with red passionfruit climbing on it. That has now died off. They have a short life span. So it will be coming out. In its place a few black passionfruit vines will go up.
It’s not that we don’t like our neighbor. They are quiet and we’re happy to have them as neighbors. It’s just we like the greenery plus we don’t like to feel we are on display every time we go out in the yard. Mind you it may give privacy but in no case does it stop sunlight coming into our neighbor’s yard.
This is a bit different to someone who has a tall, dense hedge which is around 35-37 feet in height and blocks light and water views for her neighbor. These are the types of spite hedges that from this month the Land and Environment Court in Australia will have power to intervene about and determine what an appropriate height for privacy is and what classifies instead as a spite hedge. It certainly doesn’t make for good relationships with neighbors.
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