All of the home owners in our neighborhood moved into new homes a few years ago and promptly over planted the yards, planting trees that were to grow beyond expectations, and planting most of them too close to the fences. We were no exception.

But how do you ever get rid of lovely Aspen trees?  Who doesn’t rejoice at a neighbor’s Aspen volunteers? We understand they want to grow into tall, strong, flowing Aspen trees themselves, but they are now in our yard, getting taller all the time. Our decision this fall is to keep them pruned into bushes, so we can enjoy their beautiful yellow leaves this fall, and hopefully delay their eventual growth into magnificent trees themselves. In years to come we might have to move the fence, but hopefully not the Aspen.

As for our own over planting, we have three trees that are going to be incredibly big. We have a River Birch, an Ash and a Blue Spruce, all in a small, busy yard. We have already pruned low branches of our Birch so we can mow under the tree, and the Ash (which grandson Asher believes is named after him) is getting taller, wider, and bigger every day.  We look at the trees in the photo album when they were planted and marvel at how well they’re doing, but now we’re beginning to be alarmed.

“You know, the tag on that tree said it would reach 40 ft., remember?” We shake our heads, not believing the hype at the time. How many things ever live up to the ads about them? The coffee isn’t as remarkable, the cars really don’t get that gas mileage, and the trees never grow that tall .. except the trees do grow that tall. And wide. Especially if they are planted too close to neighbor’s fences.

It’s OK, though.  Our neighbor’s lovely Aspen tree has encroached into our yard, but our River Birch hangs over his fence; our Clematis vine has enchroached into his yard, and another neighbor’s plum trees and their Verigated Dogwood reached over our fence this summer. Our Ash now resides in his yard as well as ours. The raspberries that thrived beyond belief in our yard, from a mere five plants five summer ago, have supplied a healthy raspberry batch to another neighbor’s yard, and their Clematis vine by their kitchen window began to creep over our fence this summer.

We’re fortunate that we love Aspen and plum trees and the many Clematis vines. And we’re also fortunate that our neighbors enjoy our River Birch and the Ash, and that they happen to like raspberries. It seems that in this neighborhood we’ve begun to re-define the true meaning of the word neighborhly.