How to hide a fence - possible trespass?

I live in a house which is on the corner of two roads and the house is much wider than deep. So the back garden is much wider (18m) than deep (6m). At the bottom if the garden is an 18m long hedge, running exactly East-West, made up of about 20 Leylandii; and immediately behind this is a close boarded fence erected by our neighbours a few years ago. (Previously there was a 1m high chain link fence - probably put there when the estate was built about 25 years ago - but this was removed).

When we moved here, about nine years a go, the leylandii were about 4m high, so we had them brought down to about 2m. They have also been clipped twice a year.

Over the past year or two, possibly since the close boarded fence was put up, we have noticed large patches of brown appearing on the leylandii and the interior of the 'hedge' seems to be dying off. I don't know if this is due to the presence of the fence or disease. (The fence is on the south side of the hedge so it will reduce the amount of light reaching the hedge.)

Whatever the reason for the brown patches, we feel it is time to get rid of the hedge and replace it with something more attractive. The problem is what?

Most advice sites, e.g the RHS, suggest a climber, but this is where I have a dilemma. The boundary is, according to the deeds, my responsibility, but the new fence is owned by the neighbours. If I allow the climbers to attach themselves to the fence am I committing any offence, e.g trespass?

Also, I would like suggestions as to what plants to use which will quickly hide the fence. The soil is mainly clay, the fence runs east- west and is on the south side of the plants.

I would suggest the first course of action would be to have a friendly chat with your neighbours about what you want to do. Explain why you want to take the Leilani down, (possible disease and don't want to take a chance of it spreading etc)

If the boarding is 2 metres high you will still retain the same privacy you have now but the fence is their property. You could smooth the way to getting permission for attaching your plants by suggesting you will take care of the fence on your side on their behalf.

Another alternative, though more expensive, might be to build your own fence on your boundary line and you can then do what you want without consulting anyone.

conny said:

I would suggest the first course of action would be to have a friendly chat with your neighbours about what you want to do. Explain why you want to take the Leilani down, (possible disease and don't want to take a chance of it spreading etc)

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That is a possibility, but the neighbours removed 'our' chain link fencing and erected the wood fence without consulting us. The irony is that they must have known it was 'our' boundary as the fence posts are on their land and the boards face into their garden, so they have lost a strip of land about 10 cm wide and 18 m long!

If the boarding is 2 metres high you will still retain the same privacy you have now but the fence is their property. You could smooth the way to getting permission for attaching your plants by suggesting you will take care of the fence on your side on their behalf.

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I'm not worried about the privacy aspect but the aesthetic. Looking out of the window at an 18m x 2m bare fence is not something I relish.

A separate fence is not a viable solution.

Despite the fact they removed your fence without permission a solicitor would always advise attempting consultation in matters like this.
As a fence is not a viable alternative would a trellis attached to their fence be viable? Or a trellis on your land supported by evenly spaced posts? Once your climbers have spread along the trellis it may be virtually unnoticeable.

You may have though of this, but one option might be to have the leylandii cut (and possibly sliced) back to a narrow framework, and use that itself as a trellis to grow vigorous climbers such as rambling rose(s), clematis montana, virgina creeper, wisteria, grapevine etc. I strongly agree with others that this could be an ideal opportunity to establish good contact with your neighbour. We moved into a house 6 months ago with 2 very large leylandii in a corner of our garden which we felt needed to be removed, but which were providing much valued privacy to our neighbour. The process of conversation, negotiation and consultation has led to us becoming friends, and coming up with a solution which has worked well for both us and them. In our case we erected willow hurdle and planted climbers to grow up them, but have also retained one of the leylandii trunks at about 3 metres and trained an existing wisteria up it.

StephenStephen said:

You may have though of this, but one option might be to have the leylandii cut (and possibly sliced) back to a narrow framework, and use that itself as a trellis to grow vigorous climbers

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That sounds like a good idea, but how do you prevent the leylandii sprouting shoots?

What do you mean by having the leylandii "sliced"? We had a good six feet taken of them when we moved in nearly 10 years a go and the top of the hedge runs at the same height as the fence.

Here are some pics. You can see the amount of shade as we are looking due south. You can also see the fence and the brown patches on the hedge.

Slicing them back and front parallel to the fence, so that you're left with a narrower and more open framework - like a 2 dimensional cross section of a leylandii hedge. You could either welcome (unlikely) new growth on the leylandii, or ringbark them at the base to prevent it. The difficulty you might have is finding rootspace for new climbers.

As you can see from the pics, the individual trees are about 2ft apart. If I was to remove, roots and all, two out of three, e.g leaving 1,4,7,10 etc, there should be enough space for the roots of the new planting. The removed trunks could even be used for horizontal stretchers between the retained verticals.

Plenty of food for thought.