A Bit On The Side - 1

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Twenty-four years ago, when I moved to this house, my neighbour had a huge garden. As well as extending a hundred feet from the back of the house, it then ran west behind neighbouring properties. Over the years, as old age and ill health caught up with him, I watched enviously as parts of it were sold off (I live on the east side so had no access to it). After he died, the last section was sold and the opportunity to acquire more ground seemed to have gone.

Last August, his widow had a major operation and is slowly making a recovery but is struggling with the garden. I broached the subject with her just before Christmas and, after thinking it over and discussing it with her family, she has agreed to sell me the top section of her plot. The area is about twenty-five feet square and borders the end of my garden on the left hand side. By removing two fence panels and digging out a viburnum tinus, I will have access to it.

Access will be here – another job for Bruno

It is currently overgrown with self-sown geraniums, brambles and other weeds. There are also a couple of winter-flowering viburnums, a weigela, kerria, a small apple tree (grown from a pip I suspect] and a cotoneaster franchettii (the latter courtesy of a bird) plus a forty foot tall contorted willow which she planted as a small tree fifty years ago but which is now slowly dying. On the northern boundary is a leylandii hedge, currently nearly twenty feet high that had the tops cut out several years ago. The area is very sheltered but is partly shaded by another large conifer and a mature acer on the southern side so will only get sun for part of the day.

The area in question

View over the fence from my garden

The purchase, seemingly a simple task, got bogged down. Firstly, her solicitors seemed to be charging an exorbitant amount for the sale, their fees being double what mine were charging. Then it transpired that when my neighbours bought their house some fifty years ago, the land that went with it was not registered in their names. Although they were able to sell parts of it before by means of an interim form from the Land Registry, the law has subsequently been changed and this method is no longer available.

We have discussed the boundary between the area and the rest of her garden (she does not want to look out at a tall fence) and what I plan to do with the leylandii (it currently hides a house behind). She realises the willow will have to come down but I have offered to give her a piece for one of her children to grow a new tree.

Finally, yesterday all the paperwork was signed, money paid and solicitors happy and the new piece of garden is mine. What will I do with the new area once it has been cleared? Watch this space!

• 15 May, 2009
• 12 likes

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