Fatsia do grow back quite well from a low stump - hard pruning to the ground is often a process that is taken when the topgrowth suffers from an unnaturally cold winter here. Or when the plant is seriously infested with aphids :-)

However this practice is generally taken on well-established shrubs - since yours are so newly planted, how well they respond is a bit of a guess. Keep properly watered and hope for the best.

I can't tell you how to handle this with your neighbors and neighbor's kids :-) I know what I'd be inclined to do but it is not necessarily a pretty scene! There is such a thing as courtesy and a respect for other's property that seems to be very lacking in modern culture. And that's the parents' fault - not an 8 year old child that has not been properly taught such niceties or provided with suitable supervision.

gardengal,

Last weekend I was visiting a fellow gardener nearby and we were talking about YOU and your generosity in taking time to share your wealth of knowledge. Thanks again,

I am going to mark the root ball area and have young neighbor water it. Very good info to have re severe pruning if needed in the future.

Plan to discuss this with his father this evening. The kid is a nice boy, interested in gardening, but IMPULSIVE. He'd mentioned some low hanging tree limbs 'needed' to be cut. I disagreed, saying I was allowing that growth to give good shade out there and also privacy - have adirondack chairs and a hammock which makes it an oasis in the heat of Georgia summers. Well, he cut some branches! I shouldn't have left my loppers out, but ...........have more dead branches I want to cut and wanted someone to hold the ladder while I do it. Sigh.

So, fatsias might regrow. Meanwhile, no privileges for my neighbor until he truly demonstrates that he will think first, then ask, then act.

Again, thanks for responding and for again sharing your hard earned knowledge.

Rosie, Sugar Hill, GA

Dear Rosie in Sugar Hill,
Your eight-year-old neighbor sounds like a perfect example of what Elizabeth Taylor's character Maggie, in _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_, calls "little no-neck monsters." Even if the _Fatsia japonica_ plants do, in fact, regrow, they have suffered a severe back-set; and it will take them a good while to recover, thus depriving you of your pleasure of enjoying them. I think you should politely inform the "little no-neck monster's" parents that you expect them either to replace the ruined plants or pay you their full replacement cost so that you can replace them yourself. There's truth to the poetic idea that "good fences make good neighbors."

Flora, now have retrieved stems soaking overnight and will take cuttings tomorrow. Wonderful suggestion. I may end up with a grove of fatsia. Thanks so much.

Jay, spoke with no-neck's father today. He soon sent the kid over with orders to water the root ball. I tied yarn to four sticks, told him to place them so he'd know where the rootball was and sent him up there with a gallon of water. Also told him I expect watering or at least checking the moisture level every two days. If replacement moneys are offered, I'll accept, but will not ask for it. There will be a learning experience ongoing. No-neck's a basically very nice kid and is interested in gardening - but gardening on my property will be on my terms, that is a certainty.

Thanks both of you.
Rosie

Rosie, you sound like a gem. This young boy will learn some lessons from you, that's a certainty...and not just about gardening!