You told them to do what they'd like, so they took it as you not caring if they removed some or all of the brush. Next time, be sure to take the time to think things through, and make your position as clear as possible. As another mentioned earlier, when it comes to property issues, get a written agreement first.

I think you should have asked for more specifics before agreeing to anything.
Too late now.

I think you were taken advantage of. I really do. Where I live there are bushes between my driveway and the neighbor's driveway. I try to keep these trimmed and use them as a "fence" between the 2 properties. My neighbors are always trying to totally gut them and remove them. My take is that 3 feet high doesn't hurt anything. This year they tried to remove them and got poison ivy.

I'm not sure what the issue is. If the bushes were on your land then you have the right to legal restitution, if not then you don't have a leg to stand on. If it's public land or there are environmental zoning restrictions on what kind of work is permissible then you would have to consult the regulations pertinent to where you live. "Do what you want" seems like a pretty wide remit though.

It was 8 feet of my property, times about 80 feet. She was the landlord of that property. The landscaper was devastated. He asked her three times if she was sure it was ok. He has worked with her for two years so he had reason to trust her. He apologized over and over.

I decided no person could have thought it was reasonable to remove a whole hedge without talking to me again. I remembered that she had told me she would have the landscaper knock on my door to let me know when the work was started, so reasonably despite my broad and vague permission, I could expect to have had veto opportunity.

He had stressed to me how rich she is. I realized, she knew quite well what she was doing. She played me.

I also realized my "it is what it is," which is supposed to indicate something you can't change, was wrong. This can be fixed.

I want a six foot tall privacy fence. I emailed my lawyer.

Hindsight being 20/20,you probably should have asked for more detail. But, yep, I would say she saw and opening and took advantage of the situation.

You have a landlord, so this isn't your property. The landlord probably could have done this without asking, and the fact that he or she did was a simple courtesy. Maybe if this comes up again say something like "Hey, let's walk out and take a look at what you want to do." And raise objections if you have any at that point. But if it's not your property and the landlord wants to chop 'em down, you are pretty much stuck with that.

"What we have here is failure to communicate."

If there is one rule in life my husband drummed into me......it is put everything in writing! Anything that ever involves work being contracted by me is put on paper first. In this case I may have just said yes to the neighbour/landlord to go ahead, but I think I would have asked more questions about his plans. It is easy being wise now after the damage is done but legally you may not have a case as you did give verbal consent .

A similar thing happened to me many years ago.
I own my house.
The next door neighbour asked if I would mind if he trimmed some of the trees on (my side of) the property line, so that he could get better reception (dish).
I thought "trim" meant thin out, so I said yes.
A few days later I came home to some random dude cutting down my trees about 5 feet up from the ground. It looked ridiculous.
I told him to get the hell off my property. I was dumbfounded that "trim" became "hack job".
I had to take all of the trees down just a few years ago, so it doesn't matter much now.

I try not to jump to conclusions.

1. You said “do what you want”. I’m thinking they might not have asked if they thought you wouldn’t be to see the change.
2. It could have been a miscommunication with the workers. Like the landowners didn’t ask them to take the bushes but they thought they should

I’m so sorry this happened. Price privacy fences?

This same thing happened to me last year when the hurricane took out one side of my privacy fence. Our landlord decided he wanted to open the whole yard up. We had lived in our home for almost 5 years and loved the the privacy. We had an acre and a half and we’re pretty centrally located in town. We basically won the lottery of properties when it came to size and home. Once the fence came down, the riff raff came through. They would cut through our yard from the street that dead ended at our back property line, we had items stolen from our porch and boat. Finally, we threw in the towel and purchased a home in the middle of nowhere on a canal leading to a lake and haven’t had one problem.

I think this landlord took advantage of what you said and took it to an extreme. You couldn’t have known that she/he was going to go as far as they did. Looking back on it, it may have been wiser to discuss it in detail. Fortunately, brush grows back. Unfortunately, it takes a long time. My advice would be to plant more privacy hedging, or put up a fence. Either way, it’s a garbage situation that was placed on you. Sorry you have to deal with it.

She took advantage, and without documentation, had no right to do that. I would sue her back to the stone age.

Now..this is good example of a failure to communicate..but it's not your fault..its the landlord and the landscaper...

But what's done is done...

Some doesn’t mean all.

My thought is...you were not specific enough! But, we can’t always envision what another person has in their mind! So we do not know what questions to ask or what request to make! We have only the vision in our own mind, and it is kinda stuck there. This has happened to me many times! It is just one of those occurrences that we must get over! And, what I have found is, the older I get, the harder it is to get over these happenings! I will have reminders of something that got out of my grip, many months down the road! And, it wasn’t something that was life threatening either! My condolences!

Always, always get clarification on property decisions. People will do what they want to do otherwise. It's always a problem.

Were the bushes on your property, or theirs?

The bushes could be replaced at the landlords cost. Or they could build a fence for you, personally I would rather have the bushes.

I would have told her the bushes are advantages for all neighbors because if privacy.
Who knows...if you spoke up she may have listened?

are the bushes on your property? Should make sure what they plan on doing