Hi all,
My neighbour has planted 11 Illawarra flame trees along the side of my house. They are spaced 1-1.5m apart in the 30 cm of garden between our boundary and their drive way. They sit <3m from our house and absolutely nowhere near their house as they have quite a long driveway. We live in a bushy area.
They have been there since we moved in so I don’t know how long they have been there (atleast 8years) I find I stress about them from time to time and am looking To figuring out if I need to stress or not.
I assumed the way they have been planted would restrict their growth but I could be wrong.
How big do you think they could potentially get?
How much damage do you think they could cause our house/foundations?
Our water pipes are on the other boundary thankfully.
The neighbours are not approachable at all they have been pretty rude to us over the years and so an adult discussion is not an option.
Our council has a ‘we don’t get involved’ policy. How would I resolve this if it’s a problem?
Ideally id love to just stop stressing about it but if these trees are going to cost us money and cause stress I’d like to deal with it early.
TIA
😊
by Pleasant_Violinist68
5 Comments
Gorgeous tree, terrible spot to plant them.
You would probably notice any root activity under those pavers before they will reach the house, just lift a couple and sever the root.
What a weird place for them
i have a 35 yo one in my backyard & it’s a beast & that’s in Perth. You look in a more favourable climate – they will be enormous. They are too closely planted. Talk to your neighbour? They flower every few years once established & drop all their leaves before flowering starts. Then form the big seedpods. I wonder if neighbours realise? Circumference of mine for you = 158cm so radius is 25.15cm in 35 years. Mine is as close as yours. Neighbours got cherry pickers and took all limbs off, their side.
They could eventually be ruinous for your foundations and their driveway. There’s not a great deal you can do without their involvement and consent.
You could engage an arborist and/or engineer to provide you with a report noting the extent of forseeable damage to your home (and their driveway), and write a notarised letter to the neighbour requesting that the trees be removed to mitigate the risk of known loss to your property.
Any damage caused by their trees will ultimately be their responsibility, so the report and notarised letter serves as proof that they should have been reasonably aware if any damage occurs in the future.
If you wanted, you could also offer to contribute to the cost of the removal and replacement with an appropriate boundary native for any tree that could impact your home – that may be a bit more persuasive.