Fences Make Better Neighbors or Why I Should let Luke Answer the Door

(Nothing to do with the following. I just loved the way the flowers for the 40th Anniv. Party

turned out I had to include another picture.)

When we bought this house the yard was meticulous. Painfully so in my opinion. Hedges and bushes perfectly cropped, shaped, contained and thwarted. Not me, not us. Wildness is beautiful, refreshing, more interesting, and MUCH easier to care for. Just let things grow--I'm all for it. But sadly, that attitude puts me at odds with the majority of the near-by yard maintenance community.

Enter our neighbors, a very nice family who beat us to the Welcome-to-the-Neighborhood goodies. And they moved in after we did. We were gone for a month this summer--that's my excuse. A few days after devouring their delicious brownies they dropped by again. They wanted to know to whom the hedge between our houses belonged.

Ours (it runs along either side of our front yard).
Would we mind if they trimmed their side?
Of course not.
Great. So they'll take care of their side, and we'll trim our side?

Sigh. I had trimmed the extreme offshoots, but in general I was letting the hedge grow out. It was just getting to the point of making me smile when I looked out the window. But the neighbors seem like a very nice family with very nice kids, so I stayed up late to make cookies for our We-Really-Aren't-Negligent-Neighbors/ Welcome-to-the-Neighborhood gift. I resigned myself to making my hedge a little more "presentable" than I prefer, but worth it for good neighborly relationships right?

Fast forward a couple days to the motorized whirl of yard equipment and there is my hedge not just being trimmed, but loped off, forced into an uncomfortable boxy shape. I guess we all have different definitions of "trim." Luke was as un-thrilled as I, luckily for me, so I could be as upset as I wanted to. You can roll your eyes at me all you want, it is just a hedge after all. At least my husband humors me.
So what is the moral to all this? Next time someone comes to my door at odds with my vision for my yard I will just call for Luke. One of the many perks of marrying him is that he fights my battles, even if they are absurd. So why didn't I? He was in the shower. And I really don't want to be those kind of neighbors.