Curb appeal? I don’t think so…

This is what our neighbour has been working on for the past couple of weekends: Do you find this appealing? I admit, his lawn was never perfect (neither is ours, to be honest), but is this a better solution? I guess I can understand that he’s a busy fella and has no time to cut the grass from time to time, but having to witness all grass being excavated and plastic film with rocks placed instead almost made me cry. This is how our street entrance now looks like: The "border" that separates us from the gravel patch: I mean, first he cuts down two beautiful pine trees (I literally cried), now this!
It’s getting really hard for me to be living next to this neighbour. I know that you don’t get to “pick” your neighours when you buy a house but I believe you have every right to escape the ones that make you feel genuinely unhappy.