Getting Started

A homeowner in Pennsylvania had a gardening project in mind that would do more than make his backyard look beautiful. He owned a long hillside stretching behind his home and wanted to plant oak trees that could provide shade, improve privacy, and potentially help stabilize the sloping ground. The hillside was currently covered with crownvetch,…

A homeowner who had recently bought a house discovered that his neighbor had been using a narrow strip of his property as if it belonged to him, complete with a fence that blocked access to the land. The situation might have remained an awkward neighborhood arrangement if water had not started seeping into the homeowner’s…

A person shared his story about a surprisingly complicated dispute with a neighbor over a patch of greenery that had appeared naturally along a backyard fence. What began as a few unwanted plants gradually turned into a leafy screen that offered privacy between the two properties. For years, the homeowners had pulled up the weeds,…

Sharing a home with someone who loves gardening can be a wonderful experience, especially when every corner seems to have a little greenery tucked into it. But one person shared his story about living with a roommate whose enthusiasm for houseplants had apparently extended to almost every available surface in their shared home. From placing…

A vegetable garden can take weeks of watering, pruning, and patience before it starts producing food, so imagine stepping outside one morning and discovering that someone else has decided which parts of your harvest deserve to survive. That is exactly the kind of frustration one homeowner described after finding her cucumber vines cut away from…

In 1999, American teacher Ronald Sakolsky was working in Luoyang, Henan Province, China, when a television report introduced him to Yin Yuzhen, a farmer working to combat desertification in Inner Mongolia. Her efforts to plant trees in the Mu Us Sandy Land moved him deeply. As reported by PEOPLE, the story inspired him to find…

A homeowner thought the biggest challenges of maintaining a front yard would be mowing the grass, keeping weeds under control, and making sure the garden looked presentable throughout the summer. Instead, a nearby neighbor’s dog turned the property into an unofficial bathroom, leaving unpleasant surprises across the lawn. What began as an occasional nuisance gradually…

A person shared his story about a woman in Petal, Mississippi, who was being fined because the grass outside her property was apparently too tall. At first, the situation sounded like a familiar neighborhood dispute over untidy lawns, the kind that can turn a few extra inches of greenery into a surprisingly expensive problem. But…

A person shared his story about a family dispute that began after his father passed away and somehow followed him all the way to the cemetery. What should have been a peaceful place to remember a loved one became another battleground in a conflict that had already dragged on for months. Instead of arguing over…

A person shared her story about moving into a home with a shared yard and garden beds, expecting the outdoor space to become one of her favorite parts of the property. The arrangement seemed perfect because she lived in one of two connected units, with another unit nearby and a neighbor who had already been…