Last night...

...I came in after a trying day. There was a note through my letterbox from my next door neighbour. She moved in about three years ago.She is about 70. She lives on her own though her family are round the corner. The note said...

"Hi Jenny
I'm sorry to disturb you, but I wonder if I can get my garden man to pull out the weeds this side of the drive, they're coming into my baskets.
See you soon."

The note didn't make sense to me because she can only be talking about her driveway, and I couldn't understand where any weeds would be coming from. I went to the side of my garden next to her driveway at the front and side of the house before I went over and checked nothing was growing over the wall. It is a low wall, only a metre high. She has affixed some screening to the wall on her side (the length of hers and mine bungalow)
and made it higher than me so it must be over 2 metres high. I know my roses in the back garden are about one and a half metres high and grow over into her driveway at the back of the house (she doesn't have a car, there is never a vehicle there) and when I was cutting my roses back one year she asked me to leave her side because she likes them. So I left them.

So I ring the bell and she says Hi etc. and I ask what is the matter (because I still cannot see any weeds, and certainly nothing invading her baskets). She says for us to sit on the bench facing the screening. She then she says she wants her garden man to come over into my garden and spray it with weedkiller. I ask her why, and also tell her I do not have weedkiller in my garden. I don't know how I remained calm and polite at this point. How can someone ask you if their garden man can come in your garden and spray weedkiller in your garden?

She says there are weeds growing in my garden. I say there are wild flowers growing in my garden, and by the way where are these weeds that are growing in her baskets because I can see nothing. (I still have her note and I am keeping it.)

Unfortunately I didn't have my phone on me or I would have taken a photograph of her pristine screen and baskets. Come over here she said and at the very bottom were two very small new green leaves peeking through, not bigger than my little fingernail. They looked like convolvulus. They appeared to be growing between her screen and the wall. I wasn't even sure they came from my garden but I said I would go and look and make sure nothing was growing from my garden to hers. But the whole thing still seemed over the top. She is not a lonely old lady. She has visitors every day. So it is not that.

So then she starts again and says she wants her garden man to come in my garden to spray the weeds. Again I explain I do not tolerate weed killer in my garden and her garden man is not taking one foot in my garden. And the weeds she is talking of are wild flowers. Borage and the like. This photo is of an innocent Borage plant she wants her garden man to kill with weedkiller. I get ready to leave because I did not want to fall out with anyone and this was trying my patience. I honestly didn't know how to deal with it because to me it didn't make sense. The area of garden next to her screen I clear a couple of times a year because the Badgers try to dig a tunnel route into my back garden, and I lay black plastic down to stop stuff growing on that section, and I lay chicken wire on top which stops the badgers digging because they don't like it. So, as you see I keep it fairly clear.

I tell her I will look at it in a day or so and check nothing is coming through to hers. She says oh no you can't you might hurt yourself. My garden man will do it for you, and kill all those weeds with weedkiller.

At this point I look at the roses at the back. My roses that are well overhanging into her garden. It was a stunning scented display of many colours and packed for 20 metres or more. So I say "Oh I am sorry, I didn't realise my roses were hanging over that much. I will get my shears and cut them down for you, then you needn't get your garden man."

"Oh no," she says, "Don't touch them, they are beautiful. I open my bedroom window when I wake up and I smell them and look at them. I sit at the open window and look at them. I have never seen such a beautiful display as his before."

"You must come in for a sherry," she said. When I declined she insisted. So I went in. One sherry and she is still saying all the above again. For me to allow her garden man to put weedkiller on my garden to kill the weeds. I say my piece again about wildflowers and bees and no weedkiller in my garden. And then I suggest I cut back the roses for her to save getting in the garden man. Again she is horrified and says no she likes those beautiful roses growing over and I must not touch them. For the size of the overhang of my roses must have never been trimmed or cut the time she has been there. She has always had a garden man since she moved in.

I get ready to leave again, but she insists on another sherry. I don't want to be rude and leave as she is filling my glass. (It appears to me there is another agenda here and I do not have a clue what it is).

Again like a parrot, she says she wants her gardener to come and spray weedkiller in my garden (something is odd here and I do not know what it is). I say my bit again and I say I do apologise my roses are growing into hers and I will come tomorrow and cut them right back. She tells me to leave those roses alone because she really adores them(remember they are my roses in the first place, she seems to have really cultivated them growing over. I was so sorry I didn't have my phone on me because they were a magnificent display).

Then she says this sherry was only a cheap one a friend gave her and she will have to buy a better one for the next time I come (I have never been in her house before), then she says abruptly it was nice seeing me. I was being dismissed...but not before she brought up the subject of her garden man again and weedkilling my garden. I left but not before I went over to the screening and pinched out the two tiny convolvulus leaves out of her screening and said again I would cut back the roses if she needed it....


I checked before I went in the bungalow my garden by her screening. There was no convolvulus growing through. Nothing growing through to hers from my garden. Now I have made it very clear to her I will not tolerate anyone coming into my garden and spraying weedkiller. Actually, I am gobsmacked anyone should ask to do so. By the way I have a hedge is bushes and shrubs all round the front garden (all neatly trimmed in the front garden) and an area in the middle, which no one can see from the road with wallflowers and flowering plants and wild flowers too. But this is not visible from the street.

This is the borage (among other wild flowers in this bit of my garden on the other side of her screening which she cannot see unless she cranes her head round the top end of her screening to see it) that she wants to kill with weedkiller.

I told a friend today and she listened puzzled. It sounded odd to her, and couldn't understand why she had got me over in the first place. She said it sounded like something else was going on she said...busybodies.


Tomorrow morning I am going to dig up the Borage and some other wild flowers there and move them to my back garden. Just to be on the safe side...

Does anyone have any idea what was going on here?