My neighbor has muscadine grapes growing on his side of a fence we both share. They are constantly growing on my side of the fence. If I would let them go, my side of the fence would look like Sleeping Beauty’s overgrown castle in a year or two. They are prolific.
And, these are old grape vines, so I can’t plant anything on my side of the fence there, because there’s too many roots.
Now I wouldn’t begrudge him his grape vines if he actually took care of them. He doesn’t. They’re very crowded and harbor all sorts of fungal disease and insects during the summer. They’re muscadines, so they can shrug this off. However, my vegetables in my raised beds, which are ten feet from the fence line, have my trouble. I’m almost positive they’re why I have to constantly spray my vegetables if I want to grow anything (granted, I’m in the South, so I expect to spray, but I almost have to follow a commercial spray schedule if I want decent produce.)
And to top it all off, the grapes taste like crap.
Now, a year ago, when I was cleaning up my side of the fence (which took considerable effort, because the previous owners let it go—grape vines the diameter of my thumb, intertwined with various other vines like poison ivy, porcelain berry, and Virginia creeper) I offered to clean up their side of the fence, for free, up to and including digging out the roots of the grapes. They declined.
They’re jack***** so I cant readdress this with them—if they wont let me do it for free, they certainly aren’t going to do it themselves.
Anyway, I just did a fall pruning of their grape vines that ended up on my side (heh) but I’m fed up with this.
Any suggestions for what I can do? I respect property rights, so I’m not going on their property, but anything I can do on my side to at least weaken the darn things?