Plant Thieves - the Dirty Underbelly of Gardening

Guest Post by Marie Viljoen of 66 Square Feet

When I was a little girl, I picked a branch of pink lilac hanging over a neighbour's fence, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. I carried it home to my mother. The elderly gardener whose lilac it was pursued me to our front door. My mother was preternaturally calm about it all, and refused to punish me. Perhaps because I had picked the beautiful flower for her. I might be bent, but I was pure.

Soon after, when I picked all the pink sprays of blossom I could reach from the tall old lilac shrub at the same front door, my mother was less sanguine:  What have you done? she cried, tears starting in her blue eyes.

Mutely, I held up my offering.

Thirty years later, I'm standing at our studio window on the Lower East Side, New York, where our garden design business is based. I see someone across the street, in Sara D. Roosevelt Park, standing in the flower bed, between two low fences, calmly snapping off waist-high Formosa lily blooms. I planted those lilies three years ago, from 100 bulbs we purchased for the park, in slow transition from drug strip to inner city oasis. I rush across the road, forgetting traffic, with camera in hand. Snap-snap-snap, I take pictures in my rage. She does not even look up. She stuffs her haul, upside-down, flower heads first, into a shopping cart on the other side of the fence.

From my mouth my mother's cry, down the years

What have you done????

You are a thief! I gasp. The charge is basic. Eloquence flees. The root of the matter. The flowers do not belong to her. Nor do they belong to me. They belong to the air beneath the plane trees and the traffic whizzing past on East Houston and the basket ball dudes on the courts and the old Chinese ladies doing Tai Chi at 7am and the bums at the tables with their brown bags and the hipsters eating lunch on the steps from Wholefoods recyclable cardboard and the ambulance drivers who always let their engine idle while they rest in the cool air conditioning inside and the apartment dwellers flanking the park and us across the street, designing gardens for rich rooftops and nostalgic for scented blooms in the middle of the biggest city in the United States.

Cut off at the knees.

Not that it was unprecedented or unexpected. Last spring our pots in front of the office were trashed. We replanted. A favourite flowering quince was broken into. Then the boxwoods of summer disappeared. We planted more. The median we had planted for the city suddenly lost about 90% of the agastache we had purchased and planted in May: systematically snapped off. We kept on watering. It resprouted.

And that is the only lesson I can draw. Don’t give up. Keep on truckin’. Whether people are aware of it or not, flowers and plants make us better people.

At least most of us.

Marie designs gardens in New York City and tends her own little terrace in Brooklyn.

Photos:  Top, thief making her getaway.  MIddle: the trashed pots in front of Marie's office.  Bottom: remains of agastaches.

Comments

[greg draiss]

Now if the thief was stealling strips of turf (AKA LAWN!)
How many anti-lawn nazis on Rant would cheer?

The TROLL

[Not So Angry Redhead]

The lesson I would have learned is: Plant more poison ivy and bunny ear cactus. Follow the blood trail, and call the cops on the one with a rash.

I'm not a very nice person when it comes to mindless destruction.

[Joseph Tychonievich]

Luckily, I've been spared thieves, even when I gardened next to a busy city park. The closest was when a neighborhood child decided to help me weed (without my knowledge) and mistook my (glorious!) Allium caeruleum for wild garlic.

[Rebecca]

Last spring, we had no garden, but we had large perennial flower beds in the front of our house. I planted tomato plants. They were calmly snapped off at the base. This happened 3 times before I realized the neighbor kids were playing swords in our flower beds. By the first frost, and round 3 of tomato plants, we got 4 green tomatoes that I carefully wrapped in newspaper and allowed to ripen.

Needless to say, we have a backyard garden this year and the tomato plants (and green beans) have been replaced with a short purple leafed plant.

[John]

I remember visiting a private park once where they became so exasperated with people walking off trail and doing whatever they wanted that the people running the place actually planted cactus and poison oak in broad bands beside the carefully laid out walking trails. It worked. I thought it was genius, my birdwatching campmates were less than thrilled. Stay on the trail means stay on the trail.

I believe that if you were to purposely boobytrap your garden with dangerous plants you could get into trouble with the law but somehow this park got away with it.

[Kassie Schwan]

I too live in Brooklyn, and have had planters stolen on and off for years. It is especially bad right before Mothers' Day! I've had 40-lb bags of manure stolen from right by my inside front gate. I discovered, finally, that nobody wants to steal pots of coral bells. Luckily, I love 'em. Revenge is useless; keep on planting is the only way to go...

[Sarah]

Our community vegetable garden regularly has thieves who take veggies - last year my two pumpkins were taken.

We've put out an excess veggie box that anyone can take from but I don't know that it's helped much. We've finally had to put a lock on our garden door - which just makes me sad.

[Sysiphus's Gardner]

Troll: people will steal sod ... recently I saw an article in I think Little Rock AR where a fairly well-to-do couple showed up and loaded a newly laid sod lawn in their pick-up and rode off with it, so nothing is sacred.

Besides, the stolen lawn is probably only being moved to an new location, not eliminate, unless they are true turf-terrorists and will be holding the sod hostage in exchange for three yards or locally-created compost!

[[email protected]]

it is easiest on the soul to garden thinking that the plants may live or may die, just as we. each blossom is a gift, as is each day. think of the thieves as hungry people who need a cup of soup. thieves are just "hungry."

[Deborah at Kilbourne Grove]

Why do people do this? You just want to make the world a little more beautiful, and then everybody can enjoy it. I too, have had plants stolen, seen things disappear from public areas. I just feel that manners and common sourtesy is disapearing from society.
But we gardeners, persevere.

[Jim/ArtofGardening]

I live down the street from a hospital. I've found flowers, looking like they were chewed off on the remaining stem, that undoubtedly were given to cheer up a sick friend or relative.

At one point, back years ago, when solar lights were new to the market and expensive, I put them in my front yard. I don't think they lasted a week.

We've also had our front door doorknob stolen, but that's a different story for a doorknob fancier's blog.

I hate people.

[LauraBee]

Sacramento is Camellia City with many of the buildings Downtown incorporating camellias into their landscaping. Each winter, I get to enjoy them on my to & from work. In the warm months, it's the roses from the World Peace Rose Garden in Capitol Park. And it breaks my heart when I see people pick the blossoms from the trees/shrubs on which they were apparently doing very well, only to discard them a block or two later. Nearly every morning I see a few on the sidewalks.

[gardenmentor]

grrrr...drives me nuts. Sure, I don't care if kids pick the flower heads off my dandelions, but when they rip and tear my articokes off the stem or rip out a prized Japanese Maple, it steams me. If I didn't hate pruning it so much, I might put in a barrier of barberry just for those jerks.

[Foy]

I had a home garden when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama. With regularity everytime I left for a couple days, some of my produce would be snatched. A planted tamarind seedling was dug out of the ground once.

I everytime I talked to a neighbor I mentaly accused and suspected them all of stealing from me. It's a really ugly feeling - having no trust.

I eventually talked to the neighbors and told them how bad it made me feel and asked them to help gaurd my garden. It was a little better after that. In the end, I made peace with the whole thing. There is good and bad everywhere. And I got up the next morning and gardened again.

[angelchrome]

I think it's different when children steal or break - they should be disciplined and then forgiven. But grown people straight up stealing is ridiculous, especially because most gardeners will share seeds and cuttings if you just ask.

[Deirdre]

When I was trying to decide where to plant lilies in my garden, my first thought was not to put them anywhere easily accessed from the sidewalk. It's sad, but it's reality. Up near the street, I have foliage plants. They'd have to be pretty sophisticated to want those.

[Nathalie Lussier]

I agree that with children it's a bit different. I've actually seen children break off flowers, for no good reason. That's quite irksome, yeesh.

[Jean]

That is so frustrating. I once had one plant out of several stolen from the potted arrangement I had out front. I never could find a good replacement for it.

Another time I kept wondering where our excess, expensive but wonderful garden soil was disappearing to. One day I returned home early to find my retired next door neighbor in my backyard handing buckets of dirt to his wife over the fence! Unfortunately our relationship was never the same after that and I installed locks on my gates.

[greg draiss]

To:Sysiphus's Gardner
I just happen to be missing three yards of locally produced (my backyard) compost!!!!

Were you driving with a band of VW microbus hippies with shovels in my neighborhood?

The TROLL

[Sara]

We had a renter who, when they moved out of the apartment, dug a Japanese Maple tree out of the back yard. It was winter, and the ground was frozen, and by the looks of the hole, they didn't even bother to dig out a decent sized rootball, to give the tree a chance to survive the transplant. I was so angry!

[Ilona]

Plant wicked plants, I say.

a pyracantha... rue... something that looks pretty but itches. Oh sorry... vindictiveness does not become me.
never mind

[Cassandra]

A hopeful guy once brought my roommate daffodils that he'd obviously cut from the apartment complex's flower beds. She turned him down pretty fast.

On the other hand, I let my kids pick as many dandelions as they want. It's like weeding.

[foo]

I was chatting with a friend recently and asked where she got a certain plant in her yard - "Oh, from the apartment building a few blocks down. They don't deserve a plant like that, they had it squeezed in by mugo pines!" !!? Oh dear. There went my respect for that friend.... a thief is a thief, no matter the justification they use.

[Kathy J, Washington Gardener Magazine]

I did my share of pre-school flower picking and don't begrudge the occasional child, but like others here it is the adults and those that know better or who only trash your plantings that I have a real problem with. Trampling, smashing, ripping up, etc. is disheartening and does make you want to go all vigilante on them. I just take in and out a deep cleansing breathe and hope karma bites them in the end.

[Misty]

Funny story. I remember when I was a teen my boyfriend brought me a bouquet of flowers to work. I thought it was nice and thoughtful until my boss pointed out that they came from her bush and he had jumped her fence.