planting trees on lot lines

[Hotzcatz]

We have a couple of houses in town and in each case, there is a hedge right ON the property line. Had I not liked the hedges, I do have the option of cutting half of them off which would, as mentioned before, probably kill the whole thing. One house has Russian olive which gets too big to be a decent hedge, IMHO. It grows too fast and needs too much maintenance and without pruning, it becomes a hedge too tall to maintain. It also cuts off the view, although that may not be much of a consideration on flatter topography which doesn't have as much of a view. The other house has mock orange which is a better hedge choice since it can be kept pruned into a hedge with much less effort. If either of these houses had podocarpus as a hedge planted directly on the property line, I would have shaved off every branch and trunk part that strayed over the property line. Podocarpus gets way too big and way too pyramidal, IMHO, to make a decent hedge. Farmers use it for windbreak occasionally but they have larger areas to work with. Podocarpus is going to go about fifteen feet out from it's trunk, isn't it? That will turn a 100' wide lot into an effectively 70' wide lot if it's planted on both sides. But, also, as noticed, plants on lava don't get as big or thrive as much as plants in soil.

A smaller hedge plant such as mock orange, rosemary, etc., something that will stay pretty short, if that is planted directly on a property line, it's probably not going to cause a fuss. If something huge such as podocarpus or Norfolk Island pines are planted on a property line, then that could cause problems. In the case of Norfolks, possible damage to someone else's property if they fell the wrong way.

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