I have what will eventually become some very difficult questions but for the time
being I will try to simplify things.
I'm hoping to get some expert opinions on how I should proceed.

Long story short, my neighbour planted a bunch of Dappled Willow shrubs
around 8 years ago and I didn't pay too much attention to them.

Fast forward to this summer and they started to really take off and grow like crazy.
A ton of the growth is on my property.
I do not like the fact that they keep encroaching more and more onto my property.

What are some tips and advice you would have for me?

Is this a row of trees along your property line?

When you say encroaching, do you mean the trunks and roots are growing onto your property, or do you mean the branches and leaves. Growing over or through a fence?

Photos would help us understand what you're describing. And more information about what's going on and what you hope to achieve: are they damaging your property, blocking light, crowding out your plantings?

Dappled willow is a big unruly shrub. They spread by suckering off the roots but I think the roots are pretty shallow (less then 1.5') so maybe you can dig them up and cut their tie to the parent plants. After you get them dug out, put a root barrier down about 2' to keep them in your neighbors yard. The cheapest root barriers are concrete. Dig a trench and fill it with post concrete and water it well. If you can't dig them up, cut the roots as you dig your trench then poison whatever is on your side of the trench. Good luck!

NMoasis said: Is this a row of trees along your property line?

When you say encroaching, do you mean the trunks and roots are growing onto your property, or do you mean the branches and leaves. Growing over or through a fence?

Photos would help us understand what you're describing. And more information about what's going on and what you hope to achieve: are they damaging your property, blocking light, crowding out your plantings?

Yes it's a row of trees/shrubs along my property line.
By encroaching I mean two things.
There are a number of these willows.
Some were planted on his side of the line some were carelessly
planted on my side of the line.

So for those planted on his side, it's the branches/leaves that are encroaching.
For those that were planted on my side it's most of the plant that is encroaching and continuing to do so. There is no fence between our properties.
And there is a third variation. New-ish shoots that came out of the ground near the original shrub. I haven't determined which side of the line they surfaced from, but again they are encroaching on my property.

What am I trying to achieve? Good question.
When this all started I hadn't checked my property line carefully. I just knew that the shrubs were encroaching onto my property. It was obvious.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I decided to do some homework on this.
I located my property line using a survey and locating an iron property bar in the ground.
It turns out that my neighbour planted a whole bunch of shrubs on my property.

Knowing this changed the whole equation for me.

In June I had asked his gardener to trim them back. He said he needed to check with my neighbour first.
My neighbour gave him the green light to trim. I kept waiting week after week and nothing was done. I spoke with the gardener again and he said he was fixing his trimmer. That turned out to be just an excuse, because months later he still hadn't trimmed any of the shrubs.

When I spoke with my neighbour a little over a week ago I asked if he could do one of three things:
1. Trim them back
2. Relocate them onto his property
3. Remove them totally

He hadn't checked/wasn't convinced that they were planted on my property.
The only one of the three suggestions he was amenable to was trimming them back.
He didn't want to do it, he was expecting me to do it at my cost.
He was willing to have me trim them and leave the trimmings on his property to have his gardener dispose of the trimmings.

The photos I am attaching are from June this year, the time when I first noticed how bad the problem is. Since that time they have grown much further onto my property.

In one photo you will see a spruce tree in the distance. Midway into the spruce is the property line pin.

Lucy68 said: Dappled willow is a big unruly shrub. They spread by ...
The cheapest root barriers are concrete. Dig a trench and fill it with post concrete and water it well. If you can't dig them up, cut the roots as you dig your trench then poison whatever is on your side of the trench. Good luck!

Yes Lucy I agree about the shrub being unruly!
I remember when they were being planted, knowing nothing about them
at all. Thinking at the time they were awfully close to my property line.

Honestly, I wouldn't want to get involved building barriers to solve this problem.

Somehow I missed your photos and description and replied to Lucy. I've deleted that.

What a mess!

However you proceed, be absolutely, 100% certain about where the property line is. I can't see a resolution that will result in amiable neighbor relations. Start with contacting your city planning, zoning, or code enforcement agencies to find out if there is a local arbitrar.

Since you are certain of the property line location, you could cut stems on your side of the line and treat them with straight glyphosate. You have the right to control what's growing on your property.

Thank you for more explanation and photos John. I think you are going to learn to like them or have a battle on your hands. You may have to pay for a professional survey to convince your neighbor. In your photos, they do make a pretty hedge. If your neighbor's lax gardener ever gets around to pruning them back, they will look pretty bad until they grow back again.

greenriverfs said: Since you are certain of the property line location, you could cut stems on your side of the line and treat them with straight glyphosate. You have the right to control what's growing on your property.

That would kill or seriously harm the plants, probably not the way to keep neighborhood peace.

NMoasis said: Somehow I missed your photos and description and replied to Lucy. I've deleted that.

What a mess!

However you proceed, be absolutely, 100% certain about where the property line is. I can't see a resolution that will result in amiable neighbor relations. Start with contacting your city planning, zoning, or code enforcement agencies to find out if there is a local arbitrar.

The property line is a little tricky unfortunately.
It turns out the builder skimped when he had the surveyor lay out the lot plan. He placed 5 iron pins in the ground around my house.
As luck would have it he omitted placing the back pin along the boundary line with my shrub neighbour.

I have different ways of locating the precise boundary line, both of which I haven't done yet.
Right now I am relying on the front pin (which I have) and a tree I planted when I moved into the new house just a couple of feet in from the back property line (the builder had put up wood stakes).

I've done a heck of a lot of homework already. My city won't touch these types of disputes. They say it needs to be settled either with my neighbour or in the courts.

Here in NY, killing or harming to the degree you've damaged a plant bordering (or over) the property line is a criminal offense.

Talking to the neighbor is a far better approach and helps keep the peace.

Technically any plant on your side of the property line is yours to do with as you please, even if the neighbor planted it. This won't win you any Neighbor of the Year awards though. You need to have a serious talk with the neighbor ( an independent arbiter is a great idea, if you can find one) about the line and the trees. Willows grow really easily from cuttings, so that might be an option for replacements.

Good Luck.

greenriverfs said: Since you are certain of the property line location, you could cut stems on your side of the line and treat them with straight glyphosate. You have the right to control what's growing on your property.

Yes I am aware I can control any plants growing onto my property.
There are many different approaches to this, that's why I came here. To see what horticultural solutions might work.

What I am worried about is that if I trim these shrubs back, it will become a yearly workload put on me in time a cost.
I don't think that's fair.

Lucy68 said: Thank you for more explanation and photos John. I think you are going to learn to like them or have a battle on your hands. You may have to pay for a professional survey to convince your neighbor. In your photos, they do make a pretty hedge. If your neighbor's lax gardener ever gets around to pruning them back, they will look pretty bad until they grow back again.

One of the many things I hoped to learn here when I made my post
was just how far will these shrubs/trees will continue to grow into my property (in feet) if they aren't trimmed and if they are trimmed?

As far as a professional survey is concerned, I did get in touch with the company that did the original survey. One of the things they told me is the price they would charge to locate the property line.
$2500 CAD.

CalPolygardener said: Technically any plant on your side of the property line is yours to do with as you please, even if the neighbor planted it. This won't win you any Neighbor of the Year awards though. You need to have a serious talk with the neighbor ( an independent arbiter is a great idea, if you can find one) about the line and the trees. Willows grow really easily from cuttings, so that might be an option for replacements.

Good Luck.

I'll fill you folks in a bit more of what has happened. I didn't want to overwhelm you in my first post! :)

I started to get serious about this about a month ago. That's when I began trying to figure out my boundary lines.
I went so far as buying a metal detector to find the buried iron pins.

I also started plotting maps using a lot of satellite aerial photos from Google Maps in addition to street view maps.
It's great that they have historical images dating back to even before the shrubs were planted.

I reached a point where I had located the front property line pin with my metal detector but still needed to dig it up to confirm its exact location.
The pin was located exactly where it was supposed to be according to my lot plan and the metal detector.
The pin was located a foot or two next to a spruce tree my neighbour had planted at the front of his property.

I needed us trim a few branches of the tree in order to dig into the soil. After locating the pin I took a few photos and a video to document it. I also placed a small orange flag right next to the pin.

I left the digging hole open. My plan was to visit my neighbour in the next day or two and present him with all my findings, many of which I knew would be a total surprise to him.

I guess this is getting a bit long for one post so I'll continue it in my following post.

I was busy the next day, but the day after (before I had a chance to talk with my neighbour) I noticed that the hole I had dug was filled in and the flag was missing!

I knew right then and there I was going to meet resistance from my neighbour.

A few hours later I went over to his house and we began talking about the shrubs. Before I started with the shrubs though I wanted to hear his story as to why he filled in the hole I had dug.
He told me that he didn't know who had dug the hole!
He said he thought some punk or someone else came by and did it!

That stretches credulity when you consider that there was an iron pin exposed with a flag right next to it! And several branches cut right above it.
I didn't challenge him on his explanation for filling the hole, I just rolled my eyes and continued on.

I told him it was I who had dug the hole and that I had been doing a lot of research into our property line and had located the front property pin.

I started hitting him with one surprise after another.
I told him that the first spruce near the front of his property did not belong to him! I told him he had planted it on the township's property!
I told him that the front property pin dividing our two properties and the township property was located right next to the spruce tree where I had dug up the hole.

I then showed him a Google Map street view photo taken three years ago directly to the side of the spruce tree. It showed a row of shrubs he had planted several feet left of the spruce tree (on my property).
I could tell that slowly things were starting to gel in his head about
the property line.

When I first talked to him about the shrubs a few weeks before that he told me he had located the front property pin and it was around four feet over from where it actually was. I bit my tongue at the time because I knew he was wrong.

We walked over from his front door to the spruce tree.
I started to point to all the shrubs he planted that were on my property. It was at this point when he asked me not to touch a couple of his front shrubs that he had grown fond of.
He said they wouldn't grow much bigger than they were right now.
I told him they weren't really a concern for me now. It was the shrubs at the back that were.

I guess I should clarify the main reason I came here re: the Dappled Willow shrubs.
At least for the time being I am leaning towards the trimming solution.

I understand that depending on how the trimming is done and when it's done (time of season) the shrubs will grow back accordingly.
I was surprised to learn that even if the shrubs were cut all the way down to the bottom of their trunks (coppicing) they would grow back as they are now in just a few years.

Recommendations for trimming would be appreciated.

I might remind everyone that the OP is subject to Canadian law, not USA law.

Wrong shrub + wrong place = a lifetime of cutting back.

Either get your neighbor to agree to remove them, pursue legal action, work out a compromise or learn to love them. Settling for a lifetime of pruning the neighbor's shrubs wouldn't be on my list of options.

I would picture one drastic "pruning" a year which you might find manageable and result in an attractive boundary hedge between you and your disagreeable neighbor.