I am letting an overgrown Xmas tree patch revert to a native screen barrier between our driveway and the neighbor. It is about 20' wide x 100' long and currently has a ton of 30' tall Douglas fir in neat rows. We are removing some of the firs so it is not quite so symmetrical (those that are stunted and not doing well) and letting the understory colonize as it will. So far we are getting lots of sword fern, salmonberry, snowberry, vine maple, and the errant non-native holly and laurel (which I am letting grow on a limited basis). I've been adding rhododendrons, darmera, mahonia, and goatsbeard, along with random Japanese maples I get from my cousin (free, not native, but blend in well). Our two driveways are parallel to one another, clearly delineated by a board fence that stops about 10' or so from the road shoulder. Sure enough, neighbor weedwacked one of my fledgling darmeras along with some salmonberries, I'm sure thinking they were 'cleaning' up our shared border. I'm not concerned about the berries (they will come back) but kind of sad about the darmera - sometimes this area is difficult to get plants to 'take' in as it is not handy to the first year watering I usually give new plants. I'm hoping the darmera will recover (really like the big bang look of it), although I do have a large clump in my regular garden so can replant this fall, and will put a stake with a flag on it to mark its location. Hoping this will be enough to warn off the neighbor, it really is not even worth mentioning (can't be undone), but dang. The funny thing was my husband had just offered to weedwack that area, but I told him not to because of the young plants. Guess I should have done some sort of rudimentary 'cleanup' myself to expose the new plants and make it look more tended. Live and learn.
