Inspiration needed.

Kc1009

 

 

 So above are the pictures of my garden (sob sob). The horrible fence that you can see on the right side is owned by a very very nasty neighbour. Constantly shouting at me for some reason or another. He replaced the panels with panels that don't even come all the way down to the ground due to him having a pond the full length of this fence and not being able to see what I can see.  I had a rose bed here (hence the mud on the floor) but he was leaning over and damaging them. So to stop any more problems my husband decided to pull them out and pot them. We will be putting up screening against this fence so he cannot see us and we cannot see this horrid horrid fence once the ground is hard enough to walk on.  Due to this problem and the shape of the garden I cannot see past all this mess and try and make a nice garden. I have two young children but I am still desperate for a lovely garden. That they can enjoy being in. I have two cow troughs in the garden. The one on the left has a wisteria in and the other one on the right I am planning to have a evergreen Hydrangea Petiolaris (hoping to prevent people looking into my kitchen) but the rest of the garrden is an utter dissapointment and I am hoping that lovely people on here could help me past the ugliness and create something to enjoy. I currently have over 12 different roses in pots but all sadly have thorns.  I look forward to some help. I Live in Kent and my garden is north facing it does not get any real sun until the sun is high enough In the Sky in the spring. 

Kc1009

Thank you Tetley.

I know February is not the best of time to think garden but every day I look out my window i just have no vision on how I can ever make this look nice. My husband and I put that fence up last year. That took Lots of sweat and a few tears, We were contemplating putting that fence in the other side but both of us are quite stubborn and we would lose at least 6 inches of our garden due to the neighbours fence encroaching in order to get a nice straight line. And we do not want to give him the satisfaction of then taking his fence down and gaining more or out property. (Sadly we are certain that is what he will do.). If he wasn't so rude and shouting at me whist my children in the garden we would have happily assisted with cost to do the same on the right as we have on the left.  

We we was hoping that putting the nice fence in on the left would stop us looking to the right but it just made it worse.  

My previous garden was small but I managed to make it lovely with two ponds and a waterfall (using a sloped garden to my advantage)  We have been here three years now and I just can't get my head round it  

 

Kc1009

Garden sizes are as follows   This is grass space and does not include paved area  

35ft 1090cm wide (closest to house) 

43ft 1310cm length 

6ft 182cm wide (a bottom of garden before plants. 

pansyface

Hello Kc.

I am the world expert in accumulating horrible neighbours. It must be my face or something. 15 out of my 20 or so neighbours over the years have been ars*****s and some have been complete ars*****s. 

I have tried many methods to hide from them. The best one is a trellis on stilts. Here is a forum which discusses the legal niceties in England of what you can do to hide from horrible neighbours. 

http://www.gardenlaw.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18764

I hope you find something helpful in it.

 

Lou12

My garden used to be oh so much worse, when we first bought the house we thought we had a courtyard garden until we were told it's 100 foot long and it took us about 5 years to clear all the bramble, ivy and other rubbish growing en masse. At least you have a clean slate to begin with so that's great.

You can put up your own fence behind you neighbours fence which is what we did as our neighbour refused to repair his fence and it was always falling into our garde, you will lose a couple of inces but who cares - better than losing your marbles.

Pinterest is my go to place for garden desigh inspiration - just type that in and hundreds of ideas will come up. It's so much easier to plan your garden if you have pictures in front of you.

Lou12

Also if he is being abusive and damaging your plants call the community police officer to go and have a word with him. What he is doing is against the law.

It's amazing how quickly that shuts them up.

I had to do it once with a couple of bullies next door who would lean over and cut my washing line down. The washing line that was tied to my fence. This was before I was married and living on my own. They would also threaten to kill my cats.

They soon give that up when you arrange a visit

 

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Dovefromabove

Sounds as if your neighbour is a total PITA and you have my sympathy. 

Others have given you very good advice - however can I point out that the horrid neighbour seems to have inadvertently done 'a good thing' - that gap under the fence is just right to allow hedgehogs to roam from garden to garden - one of the reasons hedgehogs are an endangered species is that gardens are so very well fenced nowadays that they cannot access the area they need in order to get enough feed and meet up with other hedgehogs in order to do what comes naturally

http://www.hedgehogstreet.org/pages/link-your-garden.html

Kc1009

Thank you for all your advice. I am reading and taking it all in, 

Putting a new fence up the other side is not really an option. The fence we put up cost us £760. And that was with us doing it all ourselves. The rightside would cost us well over £1000 which we really don't have.  And won't have for a while due to needing a new roof. 

Thank you Pansyface I will look into this.

Lou12 I have just set up a Pinterest account so will get looking on this. Never knew about this website. Could be slightly addictive. (Looks like my husband won't be getting to play on my tab for a while  he he) I had to get my dad involved with this neighbour, they are around the same age and he was also very rude to my father. 

Dovefromabove  thank you for your comment and I am well known with the hedgehogs due to being a gamekeepers daughter.  I would gladly have them in my garden however they would not be able to come from there due to him having concrete 3ft high behind this fence housing a pond. I have got a large gap at the bottom of the garden that they can get through, along with other animals that feel the need to visit my garden  

 

Dovefromabove

Oh dear, so he hasn't even been good accidentally - what a nuisance.

Glad you understand about hedgehogs - they need all the help they can get

Our last garden was in a city centre row of small Victorian terraces - and we had a hedgehog visiting - they get everywhere, given the opportunity