UPDATE: Avid Gardener Takes the High Road With a Karen Neighbor, Finding a Compromise After She Curses Them Out for Planting a Garden on Their Own Property

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Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Jun 27, 2025 7:00 PM EDT

It's not easy being the bigger person in a dispute. 

When a person comes at you aggressively, it's hard not to be defensive, throwing up your arms like armor and retaliating with as much venom in your voice as your aggressor. It takes a really zen personality to be rational in that kind of situation, like Dali Lama levels of zen. This avid gardener displayed her inner peace when the cuckoo, rabblerousing Karen next door, started getting crazy over a planted garden. The garden was on the gardener's property line, but this entitled neighbor decided that she would escalate her dismay with the plant growth, exuding an entitled sense of fury that would normally be matched on the other side of the fence…

… But not with this gardener woman. She was too chill to start a battle with her Karenish neighbor, so she decided to take the high road, becoming a wiser, more evolved person than most. Keep scrolling to read the updated story of compromise that left both parties satisfied—at least until those holly bushes grow to block their views of each other. 

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  • Entitled Karen cursed me out for planting in my own garden Bought a house last year, renovated and moved in about a month ago.
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  • Up until now we've had or thought we had a good relationship with the neighbor on the side of our house whose driveway is next to our house. We even got them fruits and chocolate when we closed on the
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  • house to be neighborly. Last week We planted small compacta hollies to create a tiny hedge in our front raised 1' high garden that is well within our own property line, not even the edge of the property line.
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  • Our Neighbor "Karen" decides to come out today to curse us out, name called us (b, witch, neighbor, FU etc. etc) for planting the shrubs in our raised garden as it interferes with them opening their
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  • car door into our garden, walking well inside our garden to get in and out of their car. They even claim we are making their lives miserable and creating a dangerous tripping hazard when they climb into our
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  • garden to get in and out. I am beyond myself at the entitlement and unreasonableness. Originally we wanted to add more height to the garden and cap the top layer of the brick raised garden
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  • with concrete caps when we first purchased the house. Our first mistake was telling Karen at the time since they always asked about our house update. Then Karen told us not to raise our raised garden
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  • any higher because they need to open their car door. At that point, We decided to be nice neighbors to keep peace so we didn't even though we had every right to and really envisioned our space so.
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  • Now few months later we moved in, planted small compacta Japanese holly shrubs around the garden border but inside the brick edges of the raised garden bed which is at least 1' inside our property line.
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  • Karen said we are the worse neighbors ever and hope all our plants di . Even went as far as threatening us, stating that we will be miserable living here. like seriously? She's 69 yo and acts out like an unhinged child/maniac.
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  • Whole situation is mind boggling. She demands we remove all the bushes along the side of our garden because they need to climb and step into our garden to open their car doors to get in and out. Her
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  • screaming got so bad that even our neighbor across the street came to deescalate the situation. Of course she yelled at him too, telling him to leave and mind his own business because she's "been living on the block for 30 years".
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  • This is all in the front of the house, max fencing height is 4' for front yards. However, we aren't really thinking of fencing because noone on the block has one in the front, it would look odd.
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  • In addition, she went ahead and tells my husband that "our piece of sh bush" in the backyard (which wasnt even planted by us, was there when we bought the house), is sticking into her yard and we need to get rid of it. On top of that,
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  • she said she's been a victim "having to put up with our renovation sh and our backyard I looks like sh so she can't even invite people over". The backyard isn't our priority right now.
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  • However, it is fenced off from her property and kept relatively clean except when we had renovation going on in the winter time, and materials were piled up while waiting to be trashed. This was mostly all kept away from the side of the fence near her. IMO the stuff she says is mind boggling and really disrespectful.
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  • serraangel826 Cameras - likely they will poison the plants. Pink Flamingos lined up in the garden looking at them. Bonus points if you put glow-in-the- dark googly eyes on them.
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  • UPDATE: Entitled Karen cursed me out for planting in my own Garden Firstly I want to thank everyone who commented and shared their stories of their NFH. I've read every single comment and appreciate all the feedbacks!
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  • Many people are commenting for us to set up cameras. We do have cameras set up which as I've mentioned in the comments, funny enough after karen cursed me out, she told my husband to go to her house because her and her husband needed to talk to him
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  • since she didn't want to speak to the "witch" (me) and that we have cameras outside lol. We wanted to take the high road since they are our direct neighbors. Anyways, so we sent the husband a
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  • text asking him to speak of which we got no response. So we figured okay fair, he seemed more reasonable in the past so we sent a follow up text explaining why we planted the bushes (I know we didn't need to do that).
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  • Truthfully the hedge boxwood like border was also part of our vision for the garden. We also told him it was never personal and apologized if that I was the how they took it which caused all this misunderstanding. We
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  • offered to shift the tiny compacta japanese hollies one foot further into our garden if it makes them feel better. We also mentioned that we are always open to civil, respectful and constructive communication without resorting to name calling. Finally we
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  • reiterated how we still want to keep a good relationship with them as neighbors and are still open for in person communication. Well, no response. They say no response is a response in itself right? Honestly I am
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  • surprisingly shocked because we've always had the impression that the husband is at least a reasonable person. I guess at this point it is what it is. Really s ks to have NFH when all we wanted is to just have a peaceful environment. Hopefully the situation resolves itself
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  • geekybadger • Get yourself a witch sunhat to wear when working in the garden haha.
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neighbors neighborhood drama plants gardener neighborhood garden wisdom homeowner karens in the wild high road entitled property Bad Neighbor karen entitled people
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