Homeowner rips out neighbor's mint after it takes over her tomatoes and peppers, installs a barrier in their shared garden bed, then neighbor demands she replant it: 'It’s just some herbs'

Author image for Celeste Mello
Celeste Mello • Writer and Editor
Jul 29, 2026 7:15 AM EDT

Raising a shared garden bed with your neighbor requires cooperation, clear property boundaries, and choosing plants that know where they are supposed to grow. Well, mints respect none of those things. Every gardener knows that. That's why the mints are the center of a neighbor dispute in today's story.

Three years ago, two neighbors purchased a raised garden box positioned between their townhouses and divided it evenly. The arrangement worked until now, when one of them planted mint on her side. Before she did it, her neighbor carefully warned that the herb needed to remain inside a pot because it would most probably invade her tomatoes and peppers growing across the dividing line. But do you think the other gardener cared about this? Nope, she dismissed her warning, convinced that the mint had to go into the soil to grow nicely. 

The consequences did not appear overnight, but they eventually came. Shoots began emerging between the vegetables. Pulling them out was just a temporary solution, because more mint kept traveling through the soil until an entire section previously occupied by peppers had been replaced. The neighbor insists that the mint brings plenty of benefits, like attracting bees. Even though that may be a positive quality, the mint still is not helping to restore the vegetables the other woman lost. 

Her best idea to solve this gardening dispute was to wait until her neighbor was away and pull out as much mint as possible, including the plants that were on the other side, and finally install a plastic barrier in the middle of the garden bed. Now, removing plants from the other section is crossing a boundary, but this neighbor had always refused to plant the mint, and when it consumed her garden, it became everybody's problem. She has been warned, and despite the warning, she planted it anyway. Now, she'll have to deal with the consequences. 

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  • Adult woman standing between green plants while removing the mints from an outdoor garden bed.
    via Unsplash+ (Getty Images)

    Adult woman standing between green plants while removing the mints from an outdoor garden bed.

    People depicted are models.

  • AITA for ripping out my neighbor's mint plants that took over half of our shared garden bed?

    Dane and I own a raised garden box between our townhouse buildings. It is evenly split down the middle and the two sides are ours; I have known this since we bought our homes three years ago.
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  • Last spring, Dane decided to plant some mint on her side of the garden. When I reminded her that mint will spread everywhere if it is not contained
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  • and it needs to be planted in a pot, she answered that she wanted it to grow nicely. As it is her side, I gave up.
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  • This July, the mint spread all over my tomatoes and peppers. Every time I pulled out the shoots in my section,
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  • new ones would pop up from underground roots. It got even worse this year, as my entire section with peppers was replaced with mint.
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  • I tried asking Diane once more to fix this problem, as I couldn't do it myself. She claimed that mint is good for the environment and it attracts bees, so I
    via LettuceLizzard
  • am supposed to leave it alone. In response, I mentioned that this does not matter now as mint takes away my vegetables and Dane dismissed it, saying that it is just some herbs.
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  • Neighbor kneeling while tending plants in a shared outdoor garden.
    via Unsplash+ (Emma Renly)

    Neighbor kneeling while tending plants in a shared outdoor garden.

    Subjects are actors.

  • Thus, the last weekend, while she was at her daughter's place, I pulled out all the mint I could get rid of and even from her part and installed a plastic
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  • barrier in the middle of the bed, so that it won't grow anymore. I did not take down the barrier hoping that she would see how the situation developed.
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  • Yesterday, when she came back home, she got really angry and said that I did not have any right to do anything with
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  • her plants even in order to protect mine. Now, she says I should plant it back and refuses to speak to me.
    via LettuceLizzard
  • Tomato plants growing inside a raised vegetable garden bed.
    via Unsplash+ (Sincelery Media)

    Tomato plants growing inside a raised vegetable garden bed.

    This image is illustrative.

  • However, I believe that I tried enough to make her understand and give her enough time to solve the problem by herself but she did not care about it
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  • during two years. However, my husband thinks that I should just install a barrier but not pull her plants out completely. AITA here?
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  • Mediocre_Outcome6671 Nta unless you dug up every single piece of mint root they are going to grow back. She should have listened to you about planting in pots. Good luck.
    via Mediocre_Outcome6671
  • Bartok_The_Batty You shouldn't have pulled out any of the mint from her side.
    via Bartok_The_Batty
  • xMockingbirdGirlx ESH. You're NTA for pulling up the mint from your side and installing the barrier... but your husband is right: pulling up the mint from her side was petty and unnecessary.
    via xMockingbirdGirlx
  • lainmelle That's pretty much the most cardinal sin you could commit in the gardening world. NTA.
    via lainmelle
  • CrazyGooseLady NTA. The mint will be back in a couple of weeks. Enjoy your tomatoes and peppers.
    via CrazyGooseLady

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aita neighbors gardening mint plants neighbor drama shared garden entitled neighbors neighbor dispute property boundaries
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