Can You Pull Your Neighbor's Weeds If They're Creeping Into Your Yard?

You keep a tidy, weed-free yard, but your neighbor doesn’t. It’s their yard, their business, but what do you do when their weeds invade your yard? It's a common issue that gardeners on Reddit frequently discuss. Here are some of their suggested solutions, which may help you deal with your particular situation.

Wait, How Did Their Weeds Get in My Yard?

Weeds are the hitchhikers of the plant world. They never stay put. Some weed seeds can travel by wind, others by attaching themselves to animal fur and then dropping off at new locations. And still other weeds use their root systems to go to new locations: A single Bermuda grass plant can grow up 4 inches a month during peak season, while super-aggressive smilax (aka greenbrier) can grow up to 30 feet a season.

All of this means those unchecked weeds you see in a neighbor’s yard are likely to end up in your yard. Eventually you get a situation like one this Redditor opined about:

“So I’ve got a neighbor who doesn’t take care of his yard at all (no problem, it’s his yard), HOWEVER, his mess grows into my yard and it’s getting extremely invasive. We share a chain link fence, which these vines/weeds of some sort grow through and into my yard. They even appear to be growing under the ground via these thick roots and up into my yard.”

Strategies for Fighting Weeds

Being proactive in your own yard can keep weeds at bay. Here's how:

1. Treat Your Own Yard: Break out the herbicides and start spraying your own lawn. “You can’t control the wind that blows the millions of seeds produced by neighboring lawns weeds. You can however manage the weeds from germinating in your lawn by using pre- and post-emergent herbicides,” advised a Redditor.

2. Mulch Your Beds: Put down a 2 -to 3-inch layer of mulch to block sunlight and keep weed seeds from sprouting.3. Keep Your Lawn Super Healthy: Regular mowing, along with proper watering and feeding will help your grass crowd out invading weeds that venture over from the neighbor’s yard.

4. Put Down a Metal Grass Barrier: This metal stripping will keep out ground weeds when placed along a fence line. It won’t do a thing about weed seeds, though.

Can I Spray or Tear Out a Neighbor's Weeds?

Some Redditors urge vigilante weed-killing as a sort of lawn care self-defense. “I usually just spray a few feet on their side, and it gives me a buffer for the summer,” wrote a Redditor. However, this isn't technically legal—if the roots of the weed are on their property, it’s their plant and you absolutely cannot poison or cut it down without their permission. Plus, what you may think is a weed could be a plant your neighbor is purposefully growing.

How to Talk to a Neighbor About their Weeds

The best course of action may be simply to have a neighborly chat, as one Redditor suggested: “Walk over there with a couple of beers and start chatting about it. My guess is they won’t have an issue with you treating their (weeds) to save your space.”

Another Redditor had an equally simple solution. “I would ask them if they're willing to cut the plant on their side, so it stops growing into your yard. If not, ask if they mind if you cut it on your side,” they wrote.

Because, to paraphrase the poet Robert Frost, good weeding makes good neighbors.