Personally, I do not do that. I liken it to stealing. If you love someone's plant, ask for a cutting. If you don't know the person, what a great reason to get to know someone new.

Often times, garden clubs meet for plant swapping & sharing. Perfect time to get plants for free.

your colleague is a thief (well, a paying customer who also steals).

tallsarah is right -- most people who already own the plant would be happy to share a cutting. but just taking? that's wrong.

i've taken clippings from plants on public sidewalks and i have taken a dangling baby from a spider plant at a store. to me, it doesn't really matter, as long as you're not harming the original plant so someone else couldn't buy it.

Yes. I've taken clippings from plants and fruit from trees and I don't think there's anything wrong with it, depending on the situation - I wouldn't do it at a garden center, but a spider plant dangling over the fence? Of course. It's kind of the theme of my blog.

It really depends where you're getting it from.

If it's easy to ask, I ask. If there is nobody around to ask, and it's a public place, that is OK in my mind - you're not hurting the plant or anybody's potential revenue, you're not intruding on private property.

If the plant is on private property and you don't have permission, it's not OK. I'm on the line about taking one leaf from a plant at a garden center... it's not like you're stealing a whole plant, you're taking ONE LEAF. But I still feel like it is somehow wrong.

If I have the option, I'll ask first, but if it's in a public garden, then I have been known to take a clipping. I probably wouldn't do it at a garden retailer, that would feel a lot more like stealing.

I have been tempted to do that before. But i ended up having so much guilt that i didn't do it in the end. One thing i did do though was one time there was this plant at the garden center and it was potless! Someone had stolen the pot and left it to die. I went inside walmart and asked if i could have it for free since the pot was gone. They said yes and i bought it a brand new pot while i was there.

That feels a bit too much like stealing to me... although I guess I would probably do it from city streets.

I confess....I've done it. I'm guilty of plucking a hen-and-chick from more than one stone wall, where they're abundant--I would never take a fresh planting, but one in a crowd of 500? Yes.
Also--more of a moral quandary, but last week I was at Home Depot with my boyfriend and I went to the plants. I noticed a piece of succulent plant on the floor and put it in my pocket immediately--after all, it's not on the plant and it's in a store where I imagine they don't revive sad plants with love. That's okay, right? Right?

I don't physically cut plants, but if they've on the own dropped a piece of themselves, I have no issues with taking it. I do remember my friend's dad, walking onto my neighbor's yard to take a cutting. I found it very funny at the time, I still kind of do.

My mother was the Queen of ill-begotten clippings. It doesn't matter where we were or who's plant it was - she'd sneak in close enough like she was looking or smelling and *clip*, she's come back with a few snippings of the plant.

I remember being mortally embarrassed as a teen about this.

I have no problem taking a small clipping from a public space. A person's garden or houseplant I'm absolutely going to ask because I start pruning their plants. Aside from whether or not it's unethical it's also rude. Anything that's already clipped and on the ground is fair game.

I would NEVER take a clipping from a nursery. If the plants are there for sale I'm going to buy one, to do otherwise is stealing.

Okay, so I was pet sitting for a friend who happened to be in Denmark for 3 weeks, and I'd only been living in my current home for two months. My husband had taken the dog out first thing in the morning (and he was only the most enourmous dog on the planet) only to find a woman harvesting our poppies. She actually thought we brought the dog out to scare her away. Uncomfortable situation, yes. Did I really mind, I guess not.

My landlady, a wildly awesome art professor and handywoman, is also a doughty plant clipper and "rescuer." She takes all sorts of clippings from random places, but more to the point, she "rescues" plants that are thrown out, mistreated, neglected, or, in one memorable instance, "drowned" in the yard of some mansion in another part of town. I think she might have lifted it by cover of darkness...

I'm definitely not a clipper -- but that's more because I am not confident yet in how to root plants and get 'em going. But boy, it's sure fun to learn about gardening from her!

Mea culpa.

Would I take a clipping without obtaining the permission of the plant? Never.

Would I take a clipping without obtaining the permission of the plant's "owner"? Sure.

Not from a nursery, but from any public space that is not making a business out of selling plants. And not if it seems that I would be taking something and end up diminishing the experience of others who came after me, such as clipping the most prominent bloom from an heirloom rosebush or plucking the final fig of the season from a neighbor's sidewalk.

The more plants in this world the better, I think.

Eek. I confess I have taken seeds from public gardens and commercial nurseries alike. Oh, and people's yards, indeed (only if they're hanging over onto the sidewalk though). Not quite the same thing as taking cuttings, but close maybe. I guess I figure they'd go to waste if I didn't take them. Most of them go to waste anyway because I am a lousy gardener and one of my worst things is growing things from seed.

Taking cuttings without permission is stealing.

And for all you posters who think it's fine to steal from public spaces, imagine if everybody took "1 leaf" or "1 flower"

Nothing left. Enjoy your guilt.

I wouldn't take a leaf from a garden center. Yeah, it's 'one leaf', and s/he is a 'paying customer', but if everyone did that they would lose a lot of business. And even if they didn't lose a lot of business, it's still stealing.

If it's a wild plant? Sure, I'd consider taking a clipping.

I work for a green space park in Philadelphia. Taking plants or clippings from public places is so very wrong, especially if you don't know what you're doing. We're a nonprofit and fundraise to buy the plants we put in the park. Most of them are destroyed by careless people or their dogs. Most of our time is spent putting in native plants and removing invasive plants. Invasives are plants that aren't native to the area, take over and kill out native plants, and offer little or no ecological value to native animals, such as birds and small mammals. When people "prune" the native plants they often harm seedlings or kill the whole plant. Take invasive plants all day, if you wish, but leave the natives alone.

And stay out of my yard. I've caught many neighbors taking from my garden.

In my neighbourhood, we tend to leave clipping on each others' doorsteps, as presents. Then again, we also tend to ask our neighbours for said clippings.

I've done the exact same thing as your colleague.

I smuggled a spider plant plantlet (a baby plant growing on a stalk of the mother plant) out of a grocery store while paying for a different plant.

I consider it stealing, which I never do otherwise, so what is the deal with clippings? I think it helps that the mother plant is still sellable after the crime.

My husband and I were working with a realtor who-- on tw occasions-- decided to take handfuls of rosemary from sellers' houses. She even broke off a tree branch that was flowering. It was so unprofessional that we decided not to work with her further. Absolutely ridiculous.

Not plants, clippings, cuttings or leaves.

I did pick up a bit of "wandering jew" in a parking lot once. Totally abandoned. If I find them inside the garden center, I'll stick them in the closest bit of dirt. A bit of fun for everyone. : )

However, I will take seeds but only if they are in a public place like an alley way. The plant has to actually be leaning over the pavement for me to take them without guilt. They could get knocked off by a garbage truck.

I do plant my garden so that the prolific hardy plants (Shasta daisy, Purple cone flowers etc..) are near the sidewalk and my expensive delicate plants are close to the house and inaccessible to dogs and such.

I don't mind if people take seeds on the condition that they do not leave the sidewalk to reach them. Taking my plants.... same rules mostly. They can have some Sedum ground cover, but they need to leave the roses alone.

Taking the baby spider plants does affect the resale value. People tend to buy mother plants with lots of babies.

I know a museum that had people stealing thousands of dollars of annuals. Outrageous.

Also stealing wild plants is terrible. You have no idea if that will grow in your garden. You are destroying nature.
Plus the whole invasive vs. native. You'd be surprised at how people find invasive plants "pretty" or "neat" and help them spread.

it's called 'pruning'.
& most plants will thank you for it.

well, not verbally...
[unless you're at pee wee's]

I've never done it from a store or a garden centre where the plants or being sold, but nope, I don't feel abashed or ashamed of taking cuttings where it would not damage the plant or the look of the plant, or hurt anyone's income. "First, do no harm." I am currently nurturing 3 types of plants I got cuttings of at work on Friday - two from corporate-owned plants and one from a co-worker's. I watched my stepmom do this at restaurants and other places when I was a kid - and she was always a VERY serious gardener with a pretty high ethical standard for herself, IMHO, so yeah, I do what I've learned and don't feel bad about it.

I always ask.

It's just the way I was raised is all.

The idea never even occurred to me... Probably because there is a sense of wrong in it.

Wouldn't take clippings from a nursery or garden center.
However, a public park, or plants growing alongside any sidewalk don't seem off-limits to me, as long as you do not harm and don't be greedy.

Why is it such a big deal to ask? Even if the answer is "no" it's not a big deal!

Hell yes I would, if it needs pruning. But not if it's a rare or fancy item.

In many states it's against the law to remove ANYTHING from a public park.

Taking clippings without permission is stealing. Even businesses with street-level landscaping are probably paying someone to maintain the area.

Why do people think that their immediate gratification trumps someone else's property?

End of rant.

Clippings never cross my mind, but then I am JUST NOW living in a place where I can plant stuff and not have homeless people pee on it. I figure, if I see something I like, what better way to meet the people in my new neighborhood than to introduce myself and ask.