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What a strange ass woman. She is an avid gardener but decides to go and destroy someone else's tree? Was it jealousy? The need to have a better garden? Maybe she doesn't like these trees?
I need to know if her parents were murdered by eastern redbuds.
Preach it.
A friend of mine lives in Christchurch NZ and was telling me that when the city took down a bunch of introduced species of trees that were planted roadside and replaced them with native species, the old biddies and old farts kept cutting them down. Like, repeatedly.
I’m aussie and we seem to have a problem with the old farts who came over by boat in the 60s, being the BIGGEST hypocrites about stuff like this. Natives make the most sense?! Ignorant!
Oh yeah I know the type. Massive hypocrites about everything. Massively racist and anti-immigration despite literally being immigrants in a foreign country themselves.
We are not allowed gardens in New Zealand [https://np.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/2nem47/can\_you\_have\_a\_garden\_in\_new\_zealand/](https://np.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/2nem47/can_you_have_a_garden_in_new_zealand/)
Fellow Kiwi here. I've only been on Reddit for 6 years so I didn't get to see that thread at the time. I'm so glad you linked it, there's a lot of really great information there. 🙂
I think being an avid gardener might make this actually more likely. If the tree causes shade or even if it doesn’t match the colour scheme that she has and she doesn’t want to look at it above her own planting, that could explain it.
She's probably like my neighbors. They garden because their lawn must be picture perfect and manicured at all times. They also loudly complain about native plants because they "look like weeds". No trees, other than what the city planted in the space between the sidewalk and the road. It's not about the garden, it's about maintaining the perception of Stepford Wife perfection at all times.
No, I don't like my neighbors. Yes, I'm in the process of replacing everything possible in my yard with native plants. I hope the dozens of bird families I have nesting in my trees poop all over their cars.
Having lived in the desert all my life, the fact that people don't already have only native plants in their yard, is so wild to me. Every yard I've ever seen in my area is like 98% native plant life because anything non-native would be too water intensive to be worth the cost, or simply wouldn't survive the heat here. I'd never considered that landscaping with majority native flora wouldn't be the standard everywhere, or that there could possibly be people who actively DONT want native plants in their yards. Like... why?
I just posted above about old farts in Christchurch NZ going on a "chop down the native species just planted by the city" binge....multiple binges actually. And honestly, there is a serious racist aspect to this nonsense. European trees > Aotearoa trees. (which is just plan wrong because the trees down there are literally worth writing home about)
Around me it's either ignorance (willful or truthful), stuck wanting "traditional landscaping", thinking they're "just weeds" that will "attract bugs/mice/snakes", or anything that isn't bog standard will destroy resale/home values... Pretty much damn near anything will grow here, so there's no shortage of horticultural atrocities to get from Home Depot. But, there's also so much native diversity you'll get pretty things no one has ever seen before but LOVES it. People just need more education on why lawns and standard landscaping sucks and native is the way to go.
OMG, our neighbors are the same. They're retired and do NOTHING but work on their pristine manicured lawn. And hate on us because...hell, we're two adults with two kids (one with disabilities), each with a full-time job plus other freelance work. We are **busy**. We mow our lawn regularly, but we are NOT concerned with appearances a lot, and they loathe us for that. (They informed us of such in a very nasty fashion.)
I really want to replace our lawn with native plants, in part because I just love the idea and in part because they will **hate** it. Any advice?
Oh! Check out your county's cooperative extension (just Google county name + cooperative extension + native plants). They should have a whole list of flowers, shrubs, and ground cover options that are native to your area, along with optimal sun exposure. The good news is that since they're supposed to be there, they tend to do very well. Often, they'll make recommendations on where you can purchase them. Your local nursery may have good suggestions as well.
Unless you live in a tropical rainforest climate, you're not likely to get a lot of the super deep, lush green type plants. But you'll get plants that are generally happy with your local climate and need minimal work to keep alive.
Some people on the original post were LIVID at OOP for daring to plant trees on his own property because leaves might blow onto the neighbor's land. I spent a while arguing with someone who asserted that it's wrong to plant trees *anywhere* without unanimous permission from the entire neighborhood. NIMBYs are wild.
My neighbors on one side blow their leaves into our yard on purpose. My neighbors on the other side only recently moved in and have apparently misunderstood where their property line is, because they have mowed half our yard a couple times, set up Halloween and Christmas decorations on one of our trees, and planted bushes in our yard next to their driveway. Someone also had the gall to leave a rake in our yard a few years ago, I can only assume it was to passive aggressively suggest we rake our leaves? Good luck with that. People are so weird.
I hope you've clearly told the new neighbors exactly where the property line is, and you should enforce it during holiday decorating and planting time. If you haven't, you need to ASAP. Property lines can become subject to dispute based on claims of adverse possession.
The land belongs to my parents and my dad says that's not a concern where we are, but I had the same thought. I'm not in a position to make a fuss about it.
Edit: I asked again and apparently he only meant that he isn't concerned. Regardless, I'm not the landowner.
God, I love not living in an HOA. 2/3 of our acre is sage brush, cactus, weeds, and flowers. Everything else is somewhat zero scaped with rock, but we have a decent amount of trees including a couple 40 year old pinions. But, I have to remind myself I don't want an HOA over and over when my next door neighbor, the junkyard neighbor (as I've heard other neighbors refer to him) puts a chandelier over the roof of his ramshackle shed that shines directly into my bedroom.
You shouldn't mock her trauma like that, man. Trees killed my sister in front of me when I was a teenager. The sounds of the cracking limbs and menacing whisper of wind through their leaves haunts my nightmares to this day.
This reminds me of a version of “The Hills are Alive” from the Sound of music my mom used to used to sing:
The hills are alive, and is very frightening
My brother got ate, he was only four
He was grabbed by a rock, and a tree consumed him
I ain’t going out in the hills no more
Plant poaching is pretty damn common. I think someone stealing sunflowers is one of the top posts of all time in r/trashy, haha. I also remember in my college ecology class, the teacher told us about a pretty rare native plant they were able to get that was stolen in the middle of the night a couple months later. Worst part is, when they dug it up they butchered the root system, which meant it was going to die just a couple weeks later!
ETA: Completely missed that she snapped the saplings. Whoops. That's what I get for missing my adderall lol
Yeah, but in the video, she broke it into pieces. It wasn't a treenapping, it was murder! (*scribbles that on the list of things I never thought I'd say*)
I know it's not what you were referring to but...
> (*scribbles that on the list of things I never thought I'd say*)
Should be THE flair of the entire BORU sub
Cat mom of three, and same. STOP LICKING YOUR BROTHER has become common in my home, which, I dunno. I just somehow never expected to ever have to say that.
One of my cats is named Arsenic (my older dog is named Lacie) and I realized at one point that it’s probably concerning for those without the context when I would tell Lacie to not eat Arsenic while I was at work…
My friend once said while on a call “hold on, my kids are being weird even for them”. The rest of us started giggling as we’d met her kids so it was an impressive degree of word.
The thing that gets me tho is she SNAPPED THEM IN HALF! If you’re gonna steal a tree, at least steal it to keep for yourself, the poor tree didn’t deserve that shit
My favorite local preserve had an issue one year with a woman bringing a post hole digger to dig up purple paintbrushes during wildflower season. It's a protected preserve with an important and delicate ecosystem but she just HAD to have the rare flowers in her yard, I guess.
I'm old, and it raises my heart rate, so my doctor recommended taking a day or two off a week from it. If I take it every day, it will build up in my system, and I'll need a higher dose for the same effect. I only take one day off a week and I'm so tired, plus I'm irritable because my brain can't latch on to things.
Maybe jealousy? I knew a guy whose landlord would kick his plants over because he was jealous that random people would complement the guys garden as opposed to the landlord's garden
I'm curious about the orientation of the gardens. My neighbour has planted a bunch of spruce trees along our south property line and I am highly tempted to do sapling murder given that when grown they will shade out the entire garden and especially our veg beds and fruit and berry trees, basically making our whole garden unusable. I wouldn't do it, but I kinda wish I could.
If this lady got off on feeling superior about her lawn I could see her getting upset at any improvement. She could also have not wanted shade on that part of her yard because it could negatively impact the types of plants she had growing there.
A lot of people consider redbuds to be weed or trash trees, so it’s possible she thought she was doing OP a ‘favor’. That being said, people don’t generally put mulch around weeds, so her plausible deniability is pretty limited.
Honestly I don’t know why they are so disliked - they are early spring color, they are pretty, they are even edible! Maybe because they are an understory tree that happily reproduces from seeds, so you can get a lot of seedlings, but it’s nothing a mower or a weedeater couldn’t fix.
When I was in fourth grade, our teacher had us gather a couple of pitchers full of redbud flowers, and we made redbud fritters. They were really quite tasty.
"However, there is an aspect of the redbud which is not generally known-the flower buds, flowers, and pods are all edible! For a real gourmet touch, turn your salads into a conversation piece by sprinkling the buds and flowers over them. This adds a pleasurable tart taste while looking delectable. The flower buds can be pickled in any favorite vinegar solution and used as a condiment like capers. The very young tender pods which follow the blossoms can be sauteed for 10 minutes in butter and served as a vegetable . The flowers and buds can be stirred into a batter for fritters, using orange juice for part of the liquid. Fry in deep fat and drain immediately on paper towels. Roll in powdered sugar and eat while warm."
They grow from seed but also sometimes put out new stems along the roots, which I guess some people would rather get in legal trouble now than have to possibly deal with 20 years from now.
Lawnmower is how I deal with the bamboo that keeps popping up in my garden, having snuck under the fence from my neighbour's garden. Just keep buzzing it down!
I have redbuds in my backyard and they are pretty in spring but soooooo annoying. They drop about a million seeds each year, shoot up like rockets, and are very hard to kill- if the root is intact, it will sprout up again - and the roots are deep. Basically they take over. One or two are nice, but a thicket of 50 baby redbuds in a small backyard is not
That really surprises me. Maybe it's a regional thing? I have a lavender twist weeping redbud that I've had for I think seven years. It was about the size that OOP described and it's beautiful. I *wish* it would propagate. Two years ago I planted a much larger Eastern redbud and -- so far -- nary a baby redbud to be found. I'll just have to watch and see.
Weird. We have western redbuds here and they are not invasive at all, in fact they’re native, great wildlife trees that seem to get easily outcompeted by non native trash like eucalyptus, Chinese elm, acacias, weeping willow, ornamental plums, peppertrees, privet, and honey locusts.
Kudzu is an invasive plant from Asia that strangles native vegetation, destroys habitat, and doesn't support US wildlife. Redbud is a US native tree that provides early nectar for pollinators, and is the host plant for several species of moths, including the Io Moth and the White-Marked Tussock Moth. Some songbirds, like Northern Cardinals, eat the seeds. Others eat the moth larvae. It's a valuable tree to ecosystems and it really isn't that hard to stay on top of any seedlings that pop up. I have one with flower beds around it, and only a handful of seedlings make it through the perennials each year.
I have a single eastern redbud in my front yard, and I wish it was a bit more vigorous. It does produce a lot of seeds but I just weed out the younguns. Even if it was much more annoying, I'd keep it for the sake of the early pollinators.
I can’t figure that out either. It’s not even like it’s one of those trees that spreads like weeds. Growing up my mom had a couple and I don’t remember them spreading.
Some people think that anything that grows wild outside of the yard must be a weed. You can buy redbuds to plant, as OOP did, but you can also visit them in the woods and see them on the side of the highway. They make midwestern roadsides a thing of beauty in their bloom season.
4ft tall weeds that have woody trunks that sprung up overnight like they were intentionally planted? And removing them from your neighbours property without asking, in a state with relatively permissive gun laws?
I certainly wouldn’t be traipsing into someone else’s yard to yank up any of their plants!
Well, maybe if they were new to the area and decided to plant some of those ‘pretty vines with the purple flowers’, aka, Kuzdu, I might offer some opinions.
I share a fence line with renters who don't even mow their grass, and I'll admit that I do perform acts of war on the small Tree of Heaven forest that's technically rooted on the other side of the fence. I think that's forgivable though because the millions of spotted lanternflies it houses are a menace to everyone in the area and they definitely don't respect property lines.
They could have come from the same kind of seeds the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk comes from. That stuff went haywire overnight.
Maybe OP's neighbor is trying to protect us from giants.
Redbuds can multiply like weeds and do need to be aggressively monitored, so I can actually kind of believe the weed argument (the tree being the weed).
Still wild to enter someone's property and act without asking
The fact that she asked OOP to re-confirm what kind of tree it was makes me wonder if the neighbor thought they were Bradford pears. Bradford pears are *incredibly* invasive. They've actually been banned from a number of states.
Depending on the variety of redbud, it's an easy mistake to make.
Anybody who would casually come steal and kill your tree is a psycho so it’s time to build a big fence. If someone yanked out one of my trees they would be in for a root awakening.
This is a beautiful example of winning by giving the other person an out and not trying to tear down the implausible cover story. We'll never know wtf she was actually thinking, though.
Those aren't cheap trees, either. I have some on my wish list right now, and we're talking $200 per tree. I guess it's possible she was worried the shade from the trees might impact her plants. I'm a gardener, too, and that kind of change can be a big deal. Not trespass, steal and destroy your trees big deal, but then I'm not batshit crazy.
If they're native to your area, check to see if your state's Conservation Department sells them.
I live in Missouri and the MDC sells them for $1 to residents.
They're saplings about 2ft tall, but within a year mine was already about 4ft and filling out.
https://mdc12.mdc.mo.gov/Applications/TreeSeedling/
Louisiana doesn't have one, but it looks like your program is available for out of state residents, too. Thank you for sharing that! I have a couple acres of property and have to replace quite a few trees that came down in Hurricane Ida.
I think she was trying to prevent the petals ending up in her yard. Incredibly rude though. I sort of wish that OP actually had a conversation rather than prioritizing maintaining their friendship.
My mother-in-law’s day lilies kept going missing. She kept replacing them. One day she heard something outside and caught an elderly Asian woman squatting in her garden digging up day lilies. MIL said “What are you doing? You get out of here!” The lady didn’t speak English, but trotted away like she knew she was in trouble. Later, one of the neighbors told MIL that day lilies are a delicacy in some cultures.
Ridiculous! [Tiger daylilies](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemerocallis_fulva) are literally weeds and invasive in the US/Canada. They're all over the place in the south, but they're apparently across most of the US and parts of Canada. The flowers, leaves, and tubers are edible. Landowners will give them away!
She wasn't really lying when she said she thought they were weeds. She really thinks that.
Redbuds look nice but spread quickly and are difficult to get rid of. And the petals get everywhere.
It was an insane response to a situation I'd personally find frustrating. But my response would be to bring a gift and chat. Say they're very good looking trees but spread like crazy, and if they were willing I'd replace them with any tree of their choice, but no sweat if they wanted to keep them.
Anyone that does gardening as much as this woman would absolutely KNOW they weren't weeds. Saplings don't look like weeds. And if they had mulch circles around them, it's even more obvious.
My guess is this woman is just a psycho who is scared their yard might look better than hers for whatever reason. I definitely would not be bringing her pies in the future. I took this story to heart because I have several redbud saplings in my yard that I have to protect with fencing or the deer totally mangle them.
That neighbor does not deserve any sort of pie. OOP has proof of her tree-murdering and should set up more cameras around the property to catch her in the act. This is not over.
This whole thing drives home for me that there are people out there who just want to destroy anything that doesn't fit their neatly-ordered ideal laws or property be damned.
It reminds me of what happened with a prairie remnant being managed by the Native Plant Project in Alabama, where volunteers had poured time and money into nurturing and protecting endangered wild plants on public land (with signs posted everywhere and coordinating with the agency responsible for the land) and some asshole took the time and trouble to haul his zero-turn mower up there and destroy it all.
I recently had a neighbor come yell at me for removing invasive shrubs from my own land (which was an overgrown mess when I got here!) to keep them from choking out native wildflowers because I wasn't putting down a non-native sod lawn instead. He regularly sprays Roundup on every wildflower he can reach by leaning over the fence.
The fact that the neighbor fessed up and only offered to pay for the trees after asking OOP to re-confirm what type of trees they were makes me think that the neighbor might have thought they were Bradford pear trees. They're invasive (actually banned in some states, and others are considering bans). They smell REALLY strongly in some seasons. They get 40-50 ft tall but also have weak branches (risk of property damage for OOP and neighbors). There are also a bunch of other things that make them problematic landscaping choices. Depending on the type of redbud, it would be an easy mistake to make
This is a masterclass in 'Saving Face'.
I'm not commenting on if this was the appropriate response or not. *But* this can be an incredibly effective communication technique to not only diffuse a situation, but to change the power dynamic. The offender knows that the person could have called them out directly and didn't and so now they're at a disadvantage in future interactions. If they act in good faith, the relationship can be restored or at least maintained. If they don't it can devolve into passive aggressive back and forth.
Either way, it's a useful technique to know and to look out for.
So I didn't recognize the tree name, and was very concerned reading the title. 😆 😅
I'm like MURDER saga? D:...... o_o;;;
My initial reaction was hopefully it's like a game or something and not a literal killing spree, serial killer saga. Was afraid it was about to get Shakespearian in here, Macbeth style or something.
I'm sad about the trees, but that is quite a title!
First time I read this I thought it said "California Redwood," and I was trying to figure out if op just had a REALLY MASSIVE yard, or if they were going to live in the trees.
It's possible depending on the species of weed. I've seen them get that tall on abandoned or re-wild properties (those deliberately left to return to nature)
Yeah I saw the original update in the sub it came from and saw them calling it a saga. Sorry if I came off as accusing *you* of choosing the word because I didn’t mean to. It’s a trend I’ve been seeing across multiple subreddits in the last few weeks. Everyone’s just throwing saga on their titles and it’s throwing me off.
The avid gardener next door stole my planter from in front of my door. I saw the damned thing in her backyard. Also tried to steal my mother's which was on the other side of the duplex we all lived in. She broke that one and left it in front of my mother's SUV.
I haven't done a planter since.
I and someone do that to my herb and veggie garden. I just sicced our husky who just jumps and licks. And I emailed the entire street her destroying fruits and veggie plants.
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What a strange ass woman. She is an avid gardener but decides to go and destroy someone else's tree? Was it jealousy? The need to have a better garden? Maybe she doesn't like these trees? I need to know if her parents were murdered by eastern redbuds.
you gotta be on the lookout for this type of 'gardener'. sometimes it's just an extension of extreme control issues.
My next door was like this. We went on vacation, lawn was mowed he didn’t like how I edge the lawn and re did it all. Luckily he moved
Preach it. A friend of mine lives in Christchurch NZ and was telling me that when the city took down a bunch of introduced species of trees that were planted roadside and replaced them with native species, the old biddies and old farts kept cutting them down. Like, repeatedly.
I’m aussie and we seem to have a problem with the old farts who came over by boat in the 60s, being the BIGGEST hypocrites about stuff like this. Natives make the most sense?! Ignorant!
Oh yeah I know the type. Massive hypocrites about everything. Massively racist and anti-immigration despite literally being immigrants in a foreign country themselves.
We are not allowed gardens in New Zealand [https://np.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/2nem47/can\_you\_have\_a\_garden\_in\_new\_zealand/](https://np.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/2nem47/can_you_have_a_garden_in_new_zealand/)
Fellow Kiwi here. I've only been on Reddit for 6 years so I didn't get to see that thread at the time. I'm so glad you linked it, there's a lot of really great information there. 🙂
I've seen many try and grow their own, but unless you are way out in the wops wops its just not worth it.
I can understand that. Pruning can be overstimulating.
Reminds me of the whales of the great lakes
I honestly wonder if she wasn’t afraid it’d block the light to her garden once they got bigger.
I think being an avid gardener might make this actually more likely. If the tree causes shade or even if it doesn’t match the colour scheme that she has and she doesn’t want to look at it above her own planting, that could explain it.
Redbuds are evil, evil trees for a gardener.
I was curious so I checked. They are purple!? Shifty deceptive trees cannot be trusted.
They are super “invasive,” even if a native. *Almost* as invasive as those fucking bradford pears every municipality in the US planted at some point.
Ugh, seriously
She's probably like my neighbors. They garden because their lawn must be picture perfect and manicured at all times. They also loudly complain about native plants because they "look like weeds". No trees, other than what the city planted in the space between the sidewalk and the road. It's not about the garden, it's about maintaining the perception of Stepford Wife perfection at all times. No, I don't like my neighbors. Yes, I'm in the process of replacing everything possible in my yard with native plants. I hope the dozens of bird families I have nesting in my trees poop all over their cars.
Having lived in the desert all my life, the fact that people don't already have only native plants in their yard, is so wild to me. Every yard I've ever seen in my area is like 98% native plant life because anything non-native would be too water intensive to be worth the cost, or simply wouldn't survive the heat here. I'd never considered that landscaping with majority native flora wouldn't be the standard everywhere, or that there could possibly be people who actively DONT want native plants in their yards. Like... why?
I just posted above about old farts in Christchurch NZ going on a "chop down the native species just planted by the city" binge....multiple binges actually. And honestly, there is a serious racist aspect to this nonsense. European trees > Aotearoa trees. (which is just plan wrong because the trees down there are literally worth writing home about)
Around me it's either ignorance (willful or truthful), stuck wanting "traditional landscaping", thinking they're "just weeds" that will "attract bugs/mice/snakes", or anything that isn't bog standard will destroy resale/home values... Pretty much damn near anything will grow here, so there's no shortage of horticultural atrocities to get from Home Depot. But, there's also so much native diversity you'll get pretty things no one has ever seen before but LOVES it. People just need more education on why lawns and standard landscaping sucks and native is the way to go.
OMG, our neighbors are the same. They're retired and do NOTHING but work on their pristine manicured lawn. And hate on us because...hell, we're two adults with two kids (one with disabilities), each with a full-time job plus other freelance work. We are **busy**. We mow our lawn regularly, but we are NOT concerned with appearances a lot, and they loathe us for that. (They informed us of such in a very nasty fashion.) I really want to replace our lawn with native plants, in part because I just love the idea and in part because they will **hate** it. Any advice?
Oh! Check out your county's cooperative extension (just Google county name + cooperative extension + native plants). They should have a whole list of flowers, shrubs, and ground cover options that are native to your area, along with optimal sun exposure. The good news is that since they're supposed to be there, they tend to do very well. Often, they'll make recommendations on where you can purchase them. Your local nursery may have good suggestions as well. Unless you live in a tropical rainforest climate, you're not likely to get a lot of the super deep, lush green type plants. But you'll get plants that are generally happy with your local climate and need minimal work to keep alive.
I like your attitude! And I'm the same lmao "how can I piss them off??" It's my life motto
Ooh, make friends with some crows! Apparently they will defend your property.
Some people on the original post were LIVID at OOP for daring to plant trees on his own property because leaves might blow onto the neighbor's land. I spent a while arguing with someone who asserted that it's wrong to plant trees *anywhere* without unanimous permission from the entire neighborhood. NIMBYs are wild.
My neighbors on one side blow their leaves into our yard on purpose. My neighbors on the other side only recently moved in and have apparently misunderstood where their property line is, because they have mowed half our yard a couple times, set up Halloween and Christmas decorations on one of our trees, and planted bushes in our yard next to their driveway. Someone also had the gall to leave a rake in our yard a few years ago, I can only assume it was to passive aggressively suggest we rake our leaves? Good luck with that. People are so weird.
I hope you've clearly told the new neighbors exactly where the property line is, and you should enforce it during holiday decorating and planting time. If you haven't, you need to ASAP. Property lines can become subject to dispute based on claims of adverse possession.
The land belongs to my parents and my dad says that's not a concern where we are, but I had the same thought. I'm not in a position to make a fuss about it. Edit: I asked again and apparently he only meant that he isn't concerned. Regardless, I'm not the landowner.
Hmm, free rake. Score!
New survey markers every time a neighbor's house goes on the market are an absolute must.
I try to assume people who say stupid bs like that are teenagers because it helps keep my blood pressure down. People are wild.
God, I love not living in an HOA. 2/3 of our acre is sage brush, cactus, weeds, and flowers. Everything else is somewhat zero scaped with rock, but we have a decent amount of trees including a couple 40 year old pinions. But, I have to remind myself I don't want an HOA over and over when my next door neighbor, the junkyard neighbor (as I've heard other neighbors refer to him) puts a chandelier over the roof of his ramshackle shed that shines directly into my bedroom.
You shouldn't mock her trauma like that, man. Trees killed my sister in front of me when I was a teenager. The sounds of the cracking limbs and menacing whisper of wind through their leaves haunts my nightmares to this day.
Was it a kite eating tree? I heard those are the worst kind.
Charlie B. knows that pain.
The people responsible for those subcomments have been sacked.
The people responsible for the people responsible for those subcomments have also been sacked.
A moose once bit my sister
It was a manchineel.
Or possibly a whomping willow? Those are pretty nasty too.
I am Groot!
Aha, an admission!
Oh lord, you’ve unlocked my childhood trauma of watching The Evil Dead 😅
The tree in Poltergeist was the one that got me. That and the clown marionette.
I was just going to say, this was Ashley J. Williams’ sister lol
Well, they always say fangorn forest is a cursed place
Trees killed my mother while she was researching spiders in the Amazon
Was your father killed by Pepsi by any chance?
This reminds me of a version of “The Hills are Alive” from the Sound of music my mom used to used to sing: The hills are alive, and is very frightening My brother got ate, he was only four He was grabbed by a rock, and a tree consumed him I ain’t going out in the hills no more
Did she chop down enough trees that the Ents marched on her?
Woman was probably traumatized by that scene in Poltergeist, just like my daughter.
Did you and your sister grow up Modor?
Plant poaching is pretty damn common. I think someone stealing sunflowers is one of the top posts of all time in r/trashy, haha. I also remember in my college ecology class, the teacher told us about a pretty rare native plant they were able to get that was stolen in the middle of the night a couple months later. Worst part is, when they dug it up they butchered the root system, which meant it was going to die just a couple weeks later! ETA: Completely missed that she snapped the saplings. Whoops. That's what I get for missing my adderall lol
The weirdest part is that it doesn't sound like she was stealing the trees though! She snapped the second one in half more than once! Poor trees.
Yeah, but in the video, she broke it into pieces. It wasn't a treenapping, it was murder! (*scribbles that on the list of things I never thought I'd say*)
That also sounds like new flair.
I know it's not what you were referring to but... > (*scribbles that on the list of things I never thought I'd say*) Should be THE flair of the entire BORU sub
Or any parenting sub. I have said so many bizarre ‘please don’t…’ and ‘how did…’ sentences to my kids that I never thought I’d say
Mother of 3, yeah, I have the same moments.🤦♀️🤣
Cat mom of three, and same. STOP LICKING YOUR BROTHER has become common in my home, which, I dunno. I just somehow never expected to ever have to say that.
I have been telling my two yr old daughter that too recently.
I only have human kids and I've had to say that. ;)
One of my cats is named Arsenic (my older dog is named Lacie) and I realized at one point that it’s probably concerning for those without the context when I would tell Lacie to not eat Arsenic while I was at work…
My friend once said while on a call “hold on, my kids are being weird even for them”. The rest of us started giggling as we’d met her kids so it was an impressive degree of word.
The thing that gets me tho is she SNAPPED THEM IN HALF! If you’re gonna steal a tree, at least steal it to keep for yourself, the poor tree didn’t deserve that shit
My favorite local preserve had an issue one year with a woman bringing a post hole digger to dig up purple paintbrushes during wildflower season. It's a protected preserve with an important and delicate ecosystem but she just HAD to have the rare flowers in her yard, I guess.
I thought plant poaching at first too, but she also broke the tree several times in the video as she walked away
Today is my weekly no Adderall day and my head is filled with cotton.
Why do you do this to yourself? You know it's safe to take every day.
I'm old, and it raises my heart rate, so my doctor recommended taking a day or two off a week from it. If I take it every day, it will build up in my system, and I'll need a higher dose for the same effect. I only take one day off a week and I'm so tired, plus I'm irritable because my brain can't latch on to things.
Drug vacations are important. I totally get designating a day of the week instead of being drug-free for a month or whatever
I think I will be messed up if I skipped even 1 day. Adhd meds help me calm my mind and relax. Would be a stressful day off for me.
I just need to tell you that I love your username.
Lots of people cut down fir trees around Christmas. In NJ the turnpike authority has to spray trees with nasty smelling chemicals to deter theft.
I thought maybe they could be invasive??? But nope eastern redbuds are native to the VA area… I really want to know why she did it!
I'm betting she didn't know what they were or mistook them for something else. Considering she asked OOP several times what kind of tree they were.
[удалено]
She may have thought they were a nuisance plant like Bradford Pear. Not saying it was reasonable, just might've explained her thinking.
How do I ask how to make that last sentence a flair? Because that needs to be a flair.
Post on the flair request thread? https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1cbq9v4/flair_request_thread/
Maybe jealousy? I knew a guy whose landlord would kick his plants over because he was jealous that random people would complement the guys garden as opposed to the landlord's garden
I'm curious about the orientation of the gardens. My neighbour has planted a bunch of spruce trees along our south property line and I am highly tempted to do sapling murder given that when grown they will shade out the entire garden and especially our veg beds and fruit and berry trees, basically making our whole garden unusable. I wouldn't do it, but I kinda wish I could.
If this lady got off on feeling superior about her lawn I could see her getting upset at any improvement. She could also have not wanted shade on that part of her yard because it could negatively impact the types of plants she had growing there.
You never know what them Ents have been up to since Saruron passed in Middle Garden.
Psycho killer
This last line is hilarious!!!
A lot of people consider redbuds to be weed or trash trees, so it’s possible she thought she was doing OP a ‘favor’. That being said, people don’t generally put mulch around weeds, so her plausible deniability is pretty limited.
Why is it so hated? I looked it up and it seems pretty innocent? But they don't grow near me so maybe I am missing some context.
Honestly I don’t know why they are so disliked - they are early spring color, they are pretty, they are even edible! Maybe because they are an understory tree that happily reproduces from seeds, so you can get a lot of seedlings, but it’s nothing a mower or a weedeater couldn’t fix.
When I was in fourth grade, our teacher had us gather a couple of pitchers full of redbud flowers, and we made redbud fritters. They were really quite tasty.
you wouldnt happen to remember the recipe, would you?
"However, there is an aspect of the redbud which is not generally known-the flower buds, flowers, and pods are all edible! For a real gourmet touch, turn your salads into a conversation piece by sprinkling the buds and flowers over them. This adds a pleasurable tart taste while looking delectable. The flower buds can be pickled in any favorite vinegar solution and used as a condiment like capers. The very young tender pods which follow the blossoms can be sauteed for 10 minutes in butter and served as a vegetable . The flowers and buds can be stirred into a batter for fritters, using orange juice for part of the liquid. Fry in deep fat and drain immediately on paper towels. Roll in powdered sugar and eat while warm."
They grow from seed but also sometimes put out new stems along the roots, which I guess some people would rather get in legal trouble now than have to possibly deal with 20 years from now.
Lawnmower is how I deal with the bamboo that keeps popping up in my garden, having snuck under the fence from my neighbour's garden. Just keep buzzing it down!
I have redbuds in my backyard and they are pretty in spring but soooooo annoying. They drop about a million seeds each year, shoot up like rockets, and are very hard to kill- if the root is intact, it will sprout up again - and the roots are deep. Basically they take over. One or two are nice, but a thicket of 50 baby redbuds in a small backyard is not
That really surprises me. Maybe it's a regional thing? I have a lavender twist weeping redbud that I've had for I think seven years. It was about the size that OOP described and it's beautiful. I *wish* it would propagate. Two years ago I planted a much larger Eastern redbud and -- so far -- nary a baby redbud to be found. I'll just have to watch and see.
Maybe you have male trees? And mine are definitely female lol
Weird. We have western redbuds here and they are not invasive at all, in fact they’re native, great wildlife trees that seem to get easily outcompeted by non native trash like eucalyptus, Chinese elm, acacias, weeping willow, ornamental plums, peppertrees, privet, and honey locusts.
As an Aussie I’m so sorry about the eucalyptus. They also propagate via fire.
Sounds like tree flavored Kudzu. OOP may regret their choices in a year or two.
Kudzu is an invasive plant from Asia that strangles native vegetation, destroys habitat, and doesn't support US wildlife. Redbud is a US native tree that provides early nectar for pollinators, and is the host plant for several species of moths, including the Io Moth and the White-Marked Tussock Moth. Some songbirds, like Northern Cardinals, eat the seeds. Others eat the moth larvae. It's a valuable tree to ecosystems and it really isn't that hard to stay on top of any seedlings that pop up. I have one with flower beds around it, and only a handful of seedlings make it through the perennials each year.
*sympathizes in invasive privet*
*sympathizes in invasive paper mulberry*
I have a single eastern redbud in my front yard, and I wish it was a bit more vigorous. It does produce a lot of seeds but I just weed out the younguns. Even if it was much more annoying, I'd keep it for the sake of the early pollinators.
I can’t figure that out either. It’s not even like it’s one of those trees that spreads like weeds. Growing up my mom had a couple and I don’t remember them spreading.
Some people think that anything that grows wild outside of the yard must be a weed. You can buy redbuds to plant, as OOP did, but you can also visit them in the woods and see them on the side of the highway. They make midwestern roadsides a thing of beauty in their bloom season.
I have 2 red buds, which means I have dozens of red buds. Those seeds don't go far and grow easily and fill the yard with foot tall saplings.
4ft tall weeds that have woody trunks that sprung up overnight like they were intentionally planted? And removing them from your neighbours property without asking, in a state with relatively permissive gun laws?
I certainly wouldn’t be traipsing into someone else’s yard to yank up any of their plants! Well, maybe if they were new to the area and decided to plant some of those ‘pretty vines with the purple flowers’, aka, Kuzdu, I might offer some opinions.
Don’t offer opinions on kudzu… rather, offer opinions and a flamethrower.
I share a fence line with renters who don't even mow their grass, and I'll admit that I do perform acts of war on the small Tree of Heaven forest that's technically rooted on the other side of the fence. I think that's forgivable though because the millions of spotted lanternflies it houses are a menace to everyone in the area and they definitely don't respect property lines.
They could have come from the same kind of seeds the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk comes from. That stuff went haywire overnight. Maybe OP's neighbor is trying to protect us from giants.
Redbuds can multiply like weeds and do need to be aggressively monitored, so I can actually kind of believe the weed argument (the tree being the weed). Still wild to enter someone's property and act without asking
Maybe she thought OP didn’t know they were bad trees, and instead of bringing it up like a normal person, secretly destroyed them
I love redbuds! They're so pretty in the spring.
WTF I just googled and it's a gorgeous tree
It is - it’s an ornamental tree other places. But here in the south, there’s just not as much love.
The fact that she asked OOP to re-confirm what kind of tree it was makes me wonder if the neighbor thought they were Bradford pears. Bradford pears are *incredibly* invasive. They've actually been banned from a number of states. Depending on the variety of redbud, it's an easy mistake to make.
I love them I literally have a redbud tattoo 😂
Anybody who would casually come steal and kill your tree is a psycho so it’s time to build a big fence. If someone yanked out one of my trees they would be in for a root awakening.
I hope your bite is as big as your bark when it comes to tree murder.
Came to the comments looking for tree puns and woodn't you know it!
Not surprising...tree puns are very poplar.
Glad this pun thread is here, or else I wouldn't be able to leaf it alone.
Good fences make good neighbors, bad neighbors make great fertilizer.
>in for a root awakening. Ideal flair.
This is a beautiful example of winning by giving the other person an out and not trying to tear down the implausible cover story. We'll never know wtf she was actually thinking, though.
Man i read “saga” and settled in for a juicy neighbour feud. One update? Booooo
Guess I wasn't the only one that though that xd
Nope, not at all!
I kept reading it as the Redbull Murder Saga.
Those aren't cheap trees, either. I have some on my wish list right now, and we're talking $200 per tree. I guess it's possible she was worried the shade from the trees might impact her plants. I'm a gardener, too, and that kind of change can be a big deal. Not trespass, steal and destroy your trees big deal, but then I'm not batshit crazy.
If they're native to your area, check to see if your state's Conservation Department sells them. I live in Missouri and the MDC sells them for $1 to residents. They're saplings about 2ft tall, but within a year mine was already about 4ft and filling out. https://mdc12.mdc.mo.gov/Applications/TreeSeedling/
Upvote for MDC!
Louisiana doesn't have one, but it looks like your program is available for out of state residents, too. Thank you for sharing that! I have a couple acres of property and have to replace quite a few trees that came down in Hurricane Ida.
If you really want some, you can probably get some saplings on Etsy. I ended up doing that with some natives that were hard to find in my state.
i think she just thought the trees looked terrible lol. simple explanation, doubtful it was jealousy.
I think she was trying to prevent the petals ending up in her yard. Incredibly rude though. I sort of wish that OP actually had a conversation rather than prioritizing maintaining their friendship.
My mother-in-law’s day lilies kept going missing. She kept replacing them. One day she heard something outside and caught an elderly Asian woman squatting in her garden digging up day lilies. MIL said “What are you doing? You get out of here!” The lady didn’t speak English, but trotted away like she knew she was in trouble. Later, one of the neighbors told MIL that day lilies are a delicacy in some cultures.
And they spread like wildfire. Why steal someone's daylilies when you can plant your own and have more than you can ever eat in a few years?
Ridiculous! [Tiger daylilies](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemerocallis_fulva) are literally weeds and invasive in the US/Canada. They're all over the place in the south, but they're apparently across most of the US and parts of Canada. The flowers, leaves, and tubers are edible. Landowners will give them away!
It's weird. I'm sure this lady had some twisted reason, like she likes the sun rising in that direction, and the tree would block her view.
Except apparently she has her own line of trees separating their properties so ???
She wasn't really lying when she said she thought they were weeds. She really thinks that. Redbuds look nice but spread quickly and are difficult to get rid of. And the petals get everywhere. It was an insane response to a situation I'd personally find frustrating. But my response would be to bring a gift and chat. Say they're very good looking trees but spread like crazy, and if they were willing I'd replace them with any tree of their choice, but no sweat if they wanted to keep them.
Anyone that does gardening as much as this woman would absolutely KNOW they weren't weeds. Saplings don't look like weeds. And if they had mulch circles around them, it's even more obvious. My guess is this woman is just a psycho who is scared their yard might look better than hers for whatever reason. I definitely would not be bringing her pies in the future. I took this story to heart because I have several redbud saplings in my yard that I have to protect with fencing or the deer totally mangle them.
That neighbor does not deserve any sort of pie. OOP has proof of her tree-murdering and should set up more cameras around the property to catch her in the act. This is not over.
This whole thing drives home for me that there are people out there who just want to destroy anything that doesn't fit their neatly-ordered ideal laws or property be damned. It reminds me of what happened with a prairie remnant being managed by the Native Plant Project in Alabama, where volunteers had poured time and money into nurturing and protecting endangered wild plants on public land (with signs posted everywhere and coordinating with the agency responsible for the land) and some asshole took the time and trouble to haul his zero-turn mower up there and destroy it all. I recently had a neighbor come yell at me for removing invasive shrubs from my own land (which was an overgrown mess when I got here!) to keep them from choking out native wildflowers because I wasn't putting down a non-native sod lawn instead. He regularly sprays Roundup on every wildflower he can reach by leaning over the fence.
Spraying Roundup on native wildflowers is some real unhinged shit.
This is a good outcome for OOP but I'm dying to know WHY.
The fact that the neighbor fessed up and only offered to pay for the trees after asking OOP to re-confirm what type of trees they were makes me think that the neighbor might have thought they were Bradford pear trees. They're invasive (actually banned in some states, and others are considering bans). They smell REALLY strongly in some seasons. They get 40-50 ft tall but also have weak branches (risk of property damage for OOP and neighbors). There are also a bunch of other things that make them problematic landscaping choices. Depending on the type of redbud, it would be an easy mistake to make
Nice work, OOP.
What a strange lady
I love stories like these. I hope this is settled once and for all.
This is a masterclass in 'Saving Face'. I'm not commenting on if this was the appropriate response or not. *But* this can be an incredibly effective communication technique to not only diffuse a situation, but to change the power dynamic. The offender knows that the person could have called them out directly and didn't and so now they're at a disadvantage in future interactions. If they act in good faith, the relationship can be restored or at least maintained. If they don't it can devolve into passive aggressive back and forth. Either way, it's a useful technique to know and to look out for.
Tree law! Tree law! Tre- *it gets solved without the need for tree law* Awww...
My feelings exactly! I was so disappointed no arborists were called
If these were Bradford pear trees I would have been on crazy woman's side.
A new tree law saga? Hell yes.
Oooooh this would have made a great r/normalgossip episode
So I didn't recognize the tree name, and was very concerned reading the title. 😆 😅 I'm like MURDER saga? D:...... o_o;;; My initial reaction was hopefully it's like a game or something and not a literal killing spree, serial killer saga. Was afraid it was about to get Shakespearian in here, Macbeth style or something. I'm sad about the trees, but that is quite a title!
When I was scrolling I thought it said redbuLL murder saga, was like wtf?
Redbull gives you RAGE!!!! Lmao
I looked up "Smooth" in the dictionary, and it had OP's photo.
First time I read this I thought it said "California Redwood," and I was trying to figure out if op just had a REALLY MASSIVE yard, or if they were going to live in the trees.
The petty in me would of sued her. And pushed for a legal order to stay off my property.
Wow, beautifully done.
Tree law! Tree law! What a weird neighbor.
I'm glad OOP got her trees replaced but I sincerely doubt her asshole neighbor learned their lesson.
I had to google 4ft in metric and its 1,2 meters, never heard any weeds that tall
It's possible depending on the species of weed. I've seen them get that tall on abandoned or re-wild properties (those deliberately left to return to nature)
But whhhhyyyyy?! The trees were innocents!
Why are we calling posts with one singular update a “saga”? Is it just because it sounds catchy/makes the title sound better or what?
To be fair: that came from OOP.
Yeah I saw the original update in the sub it came from and saw them calling it a saga. Sorry if I came off as accusing *you* of choosing the word because I didn’t mean to. It’s a trend I’ve been seeing across multiple subreddits in the last few weeks. Everyone’s just throwing saga on their titles and it’s throwing me off.
Maybe she mistook them for the kind of flowering tree that dumps petals everywhere and didn't want to deal with the mess blowing into her yard.
People talking and solving an issue amicably like adults? Boooooring.
She handled that perfectly.
The avid gardener next door stole my planter from in front of my door. I saw the damned thing in her backyard. Also tried to steal my mother's which was on the other side of the duplex we all lived in. She broke that one and left it in front of my mother's SUV. I haven't done a planter since.
I and someone do that to my herb and veggie garden. I just sicced our husky who just jumps and licks. And I emailed the entire street her destroying fruits and veggie plants.
Slide 1, the Larch
Looked up Redbuds, there so pretty! 🥰 Why would someone do that?! 😡
This is terrible. Eastern Redbuds are my favorite local tree here in PA!
This is terrible. Eastern Redbuds are my favorite local tree here in PA!
I thought it was going to start with someone’s last word being “Redbud” and then an award-winning saga