Yes, I’m aware of that. I’m also aware of how the height, placement and size of the houses and old-growth maple trees in my neighbourhood affect my backyard and that of my neighbours. I’m not saying the bushes will get no sunlight with an opaque 6’ 6" fence suddenly towering over it, just considerably less than they currently do and for a significantly shorter period of time.
So? Not to sound all earth-rapin’ and shit, but they’re plants.
Screw your neighbors and their antagonism - build the privacy barrier and let them take care of their own plants. A high chain-link fence right inside a low chain-link fence will just be a challenge to the kids and make your place look lame and trashy.
Blackberries do fine in the shade.
Houses and old-growth maple trees != a 6’ and a bit fence. The actual amount of time the blackberries would be in the shade is likely to be a couple of hours in the AM or PM (depending on the orientation of the fence) at worst, and as mentioned above blackberries do just fine in the shade.
Look, I grok you want to avoid antagonising your neighbours as much as possible, but by half-assing it you’re just going to make yourself look silly and they’re still going to be antagonised. No harm will come to the blackberries if you put up an actual, solid fence rather than just trying to put up another chainlink fence inside the existing one, and a proper privacy fence will look much better than as JohnT says, a higher chainlink inside an existing one.
If you put a tall chainlink fence next to a shorter one, it just gives the climbers the shorter one to stand on as they climb the taller one. It’ll solve nothing, and it’ll look terrible. Even if the shorter fence wasn’t there, climbing a chain link fence is really not that difficult (unless there’s barbed or concertina wire on the top).
Go with a nice-looking privacy fence that you will enjoy looking at for a while. Or spring for the wrought iron. Keep in mind that if you go for a short privacy fence (5-6 feet) and leave the chainlink up, the climbers will just stand on top of the chainlink and boost themselves over the privacy wall.
I was under the impression that the blackberry vines were on your property. If not, put your fence up on the property line and to hell with their bushes. You have no obligation to provide room on your property for their vines to grow. Blackberry vines should be cut back every year anyway if you want them to flourish. If their plants are interfering with your fence, they have an obligation to trim the plants back to keep that from happening.
Certainly not.
Stay on your property, late at night, and spray them with triclopyr (Brush Be Gone, Crossbow) or with glyphosate (RoundUp). If they are large bushes, triclopyr is more effective faster.
Berricidal maniac spotted! 
OP, your neighbors are total cunts. But the reason your relationship to them is SO bad is because you are SO passive. Do the thing up properly with a 6.5’ unclimbable privacy fence. I grew up with a totally opaque wooden fence like this in my backyard. Then start a campaign of ignoring them. They cannot have a negative effect on you if you don’t stoop down to their level and validate their rudeness.
They can move the bush, or the bush can die. Whatever. The biggest thing to remember is *at no point in time does this become **your freaking problem *. Your responsibility to their property ends at your fenceline. You have no responsibility to protect their property. Why do you even care? It’s not your obligation to provide light for their damn bush. Sever properly from these assholes, stop giving them the reaction they want, and stop them from fucking with you. Because they’re not fucking going to stop fucking with you of their own fucking volition. I really hope you realize that if there weren’t a berry bush there, they would contrive another reason to control you because they know you will allow it to happen. So, don’t allow it to happen anymore.
The proper adult response to neighbors trespassing in your backyard FOR ANY REASON is to get angry and file a police report immediately, not to sit there and wonder why it’s happening and allow it to continue. Come on! If you cave even a little bit on this, we’re going to be very disappointed with you.
No, it’s not just you. I’m all WTF? Nip it. Nip it in the bud. (Barney from the Andy Griffith show.) A tall, solid fence is what’s called for, with no explanations.
Anything less is just asking for more aggrevation.
Could you use some sort of small mesh/wire on that part of the fence to make it harder for the blackberry branches to grow through?
I’m with those who say your compromise fence sounds like a waste of money. I can’t see how it will stop any of the behaviour you’re experiencing now.
It’s been obvious since the day I’ve moved in that the only way to keep the neighbours out was to put up a fence. I haven’t spent the past ten years merely wringing my hands; I’ve been repairing the roof, replacing the furnace and hot water heater, installing central air conditioning etc. and ignoring them. Now that I’ve got the major repairs out of the way I can afford to address this issue.
An acquaintance in law enforcement told me that if they were on duty and someone came in to report that their neighbours were in their yard without their permission, they’d file it but suggest I put up a fence to keep the neighbours out instead of expecting the police to do that job for me. (Has anyone here called the police for “stay off my lawn” issues? That’s not a rhetorical question.) I’m happy to do that after I have cameras to provide evidence of trespassing and/or property damage and an unclimbable fence up to deter return visits but not a minute before. Declaring war before obtaining weapons seemed unwise.
Get one of these.
Keep it angry.
Or,
Set up your camera.
Warn them to stop comming into your yard or there will be legal consequences
Hire a lawyer to write a letter regarding tresspassing.
If they violate that. Collect the video, letter and call the cops.
Set up privacy fence fuck their bushes and the sunshine they won’t be getting. They started hating you a long time ago by the way.
Fuck them anyways they sound like retards.
Me, I’ve always liked electrified fences with the optional razor wire on top, but folks do say that I’m a mite on the unfriendly side. Also, some places have silly laws against such things.
Seriously, though, I THINK that the OP would probably be OK, legally, if he just trimmed the parts of the bushes that overhang on his property. And I think that legally it’s fine for him to harvest anything that grows on branches that overhang on his property. However, I’d definitely put up a fence that looks like it means business. Not a chain link fence, but if wrought iron is affordable, that’s what I’d go with.
Just out of interest I looked up blackberry growing information to see exactly how much of a non-issue the plants not getting sunlight would be:
The bolding is mine. The blackberry is not going to die if it doesn’t get full sun all day every day. Fuck the blackberry, build your fence and keep them out.
I’m sorry but the first time the neighbors yell at me for being on my own property is the day I put down a deposit on a solid wood fence.
You are bending over backwards to please people who will hate you no matter what. They’ve gotten away with it so far because you don’t want confrontation. I know it’s easy for us to give you advice, as we don’t have to live next to these psychos, but you need to put up a fence that will end the problem now, not stretch it out for the next 20 years.
I mean, what are they going to do? Put dog shit on your porch for the next 5 years? I can just imagine: “Mom, do I HAVE to put the dog crap on PotLuck’s porch today? I’m TIRED!”
If they burn down your fence, it will be obvious where the fire started (on their side). Maybe they’ll egg your house once or twice, but once you can no longer see each other and they can’t access your yard, they’ll eventually forget about you.
Get your camera, get a real fence, and for God’s sake, stop worrying about that damn blackberry bush! You’d think it was a UNESCO Heritage plant the way you’re looking out for it!
If you want wrought iron, put up wrought iron, they do look nice.
Your neighbors are going to be PO’ed no matter what you do, but when the 1st berry crop post-fence comes in, they’ll eventually forget about their outrage. They may still be assholes, but they won’t have a leg to stand on in regards to killing the bushes. There’s not much that kills blackberries.
Besides, they obviously have no care for your plants, so why bend over backwards for their unkillable one?
Our first house had a pool with one of those high chain link fences that encircled it. The rest of the yard was outside of that fence and we didn’t like it. So we decided to put up a new fence to enclose the entire back yard.
The little old lady that lived behind us had a fit. Said we were blocking her view. The truth is, if anything was blocking her view (of Savemart), it was our house, not the four foot fence with two additional feet of lattice on top that we were proposing. She could not be reasoned with. She thought she should have more say than us because 40 years prior, she had sold that piece of land to the people we bought the house from. She was a silly old biddy.
She once told us that she wanted us to stop BBQing in our yard cause she didn’t like the smell.
We built our fence and continued to grill our hamburgers when we wanted to. But I understand why you want to proceed with care and caution. We were not worried about retaliation from this old woman. Your neighbors on the other hand, appear to be capable of more than just not liking it.
How do you feel about large dogs that bark a lot at people that come in to your yard uninvited?
Put up a proper fence. They will ignore or damage a larger chain link. Get your camera, get a survey, have the fence put up by a proper fencing contractor, and wait for the retaliation. Take the video to the police and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. You have to teach them a lesson about respecting others.
No kidding I should have put up a fence right away. As irritating as my neighbours are, however, when I first moved in I wasn’t in a financial position to prioritize keeping them off my flowers over more pressing matters like fixing a leaky roof. Just buying the place depleted my savings and I’m paying for things as I go.
In any case you guys have made several valid points so fuck their blackberry bush, I’ma get what I want!
A full-on wrought iron fence on both sides of my yard is currently beyond my means and I’m swayed by the “out of sight out of mind” arguments for a spiteful solid wood privacy fence but I deserve something pretty, damnit. Something along these lines is currently where I’m at. Having a decorative top instead of 6’ 6" of solid wood may facilitate climbing but I’ll choose painful but decorative spikes to discourage it, and have it all on tape if/when it happens.
The 8-camera system I’m looking at is top of the line and paying for it will set the fence construction back considerably, but it will no doubt pay for itself if I need to press vandalism charges or file a civil case to make my neighbours pay to repair anything they damage or make trespassing charges stick. Ibanez’s and Acid Lamp’s posts outline how I plan to make that happen.
That’s a pretty fence, but in this case, I think an electrified, double-walled fence (with an alligator-filled moat in the middle) with predator drones flying overhead is called for. Let’s see them jump over that to come pick berries! 