When I was younger, my mother kept a beautiful garden in the sloped front, reaching down to the well-traveled sidewalk. But because we lived on a busy strip close to a high school where, passersby would often rip flowers and shrubs out of the beds with no remorse. Usually it was the school kids, but not always.
Recently this happened in my own backyard. An older woman ran up and tore several small branches off the newly bloomed Lilac tree. I was in shock, but before I could say anything from my balcony-watch she scurried off into the street. Part of me wanted to call after her, hold her accountable for her actions. Next time I will. The trees and flowers of the neighborhood are there for everyone’s visual enjoyment, particularly those who plant and maintain them, and so there is an expectation of respect.
Have you ever caught someone in the act of shamelessly uprooting flowers of tearing branches? How do you choose your words in these situations? Do you speak out even when the garden is not your own?
(Image: MaryAnne Petrella)
Apartment Therapy's Sofa Shopping Guide
Nikki’s Sweet and Cheery Print Studio
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Sprout Side Table
5 Things Paris Taught Me About Travel
Recipe: Ham, Cheddar & Chive Egg Bakes
My parents have an orange tree in their front yard. Because a very popular little cafe is nearby and parking is atrocious, people think they can take them rather than buy them at the farmers market hosted in the parking lot of the cafe. Drives me insane because my parents are garden lovers.
My neighbor has a huge Rosemary bush near the curb. One day, a truck stopped on the curb in front of our house, which is unusual. After it was there for a short bit, I got up to go to the window to see what was going on. Just as I did, a woman was quickly walking back to the truck with a handful of rosemary branches. I was in shock.
I've had plants pulled up, and have been known to chase people down the street and tell them off. One time a family walked by while I was working in the garden and they picked all the blooming tulips and walked right by me! (yes, yelling followed). I try to explain that we spend a lot of time and money on our garden, and don't appreciate theft, from us or others who might enjoy looking at what they just stole. We have a nice garden, and did it so that others could enjoy. The sad thing is that when people ask, we are happy to share. I do have to say, for every theft, there are at least 10 who stop to say they like what we've done.
ooh it's really tempting to pick flowers. I thought this was about digging up the whole plant. That happens an awful lot around here. My aunt just doesn't grow anything in the front yard.
But yes, lilacs especially tempt me. I can't grow trees in an apartment... I can't even keep flowers because my cat eats everything. Though I figure if someone lets their trees get overgrown and stick out through the back fence, I'd say that's fair play. But I wouldn't enter a person's property! That's bold.
I've never taken someone's flowers/plants. Ever. So rude!
Thankfully this hasn't happened to me either, but can only imagine how POed I'd be. Its bad enough I watch my neighbors look right at me as their dogs take a dump on my lawn then keep walking. I guess that's close to as bad actually! Just no respect for other people but you know if you did the same to these people they'd be one ones who get in your face about it.
We live right next to a high school, and we end up with garbage and things thrown in our front yard a lot. Last summer, our tiny baby apple tree managed to put out TWO whole apples, and before we could harvest them someone stole them right off! If we had many apples, I wouldn't mind sharing with the occasional passerby, but we only had two and they were our first! It was upsetting.
This year we are installing a bunch of raised beds in the front yard and we worry about how we will discourage people from taking things from our garden. We will probably end up putting a fence around the front yard. We are thinking about making it out of pallets and then turning them into vertical garden spaces as well! All our work is certainly attracting attention from our neighbors - we've talked to several people in the last week that we've never even seen before. They all want to know what we're doing :) I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that all the attention we're getting will stay positive and people won't want to steal from us or destroy our hard work.
I have little kids, and everyone knows that kids like to pick flowers. I *try* to tell her that they aren't ours, and she shouldn't take them without asking...it doesn't always work like I want it to.
I think its a little different if I little girl comes by picking some flowers. I don't think I could say something to that! But a little boy/ teenagers ripping flowers off because they can? No thanks.
Please relax everyone. The world gets more crowded every day. Don't like it? Don't breed. I know that people take flowers when they shouldn't, but really, in the greater scheme of things, how horrible is this? I have caught people plucking my flowers & herbs in several states. If they linger long enough for me to approach them, I offer more, cuttings, a jar, & how to grow tips. There was a time when there was open land, this time is no more. Share, it won't hurt your feelings if you give them permission.
Im all for sharing, but within reason. The house we live in has fruit trees in the front. There is NO WAY we will eat everything they produce. But last year, someone stripped every apricot off the tree. That is just being a douche.
I grew up on a flower farm. People would drive to our house, park in our driveway and cut themselves bunches of flowers. There's sharing and then there's stealing. I've chatted up gardeners and gotten cuttings - or offered up flowers and bulbs to admirers, but that's different from taking things we sell.
@keygirlus
I don't think the problem is that there are more people, but that there's a greater proportion of people with no respect and courtesy for those around them. It's like manners have become passe for some reason.
@airexurb, you are responsible for teaching your little ones that stealing is wrong. You're also responsible for punishing her when she steals.
@keygirlus, in the greater scheme of things it is horrible. Taking something that isn't yours - whether big or small - is stealing something that someone else earned. Charity is something that can be given but is not something that should be demanded.
A couple of years ago my parents planted a row of semi-expensive trees in front of their house. Someone came by in the middle of the night and stole them out of the ground! TREES!
a neighborhood woman came by my house with clippers and helped herself.
When my husband and I lived in Milwaukee we had all of the plants off our deck stolen... our first housewarming gift from my mother who made a special trip to buy us our first ones.
She's had the same plants since she and my father were married and wanted to do the same for us. I hope the folks who took them care for them well.
I drove by some wild, overgrown, bursting lilac bushes today and I was sooooo tempted to stop and pick a few flowers. We had them in my yard when I was a kid and that smell always takes me back. Ours, too, were overgrown (we had the space to let 'em go) and I don't think we would have even noticed if someone took a few handfuls. That said, entering someone's private property (even just a few steps, really) is trespassing.
Picking tended flowers, even along a sidewalk, is wrong. Taking someone's food is wrong - could you imagine someone picking a few apples out of your grocery bag?
Most gardeners are happy to share - gardening is a commitment to making the world beautiful, and generosity goes a long way toward that goal. People should just ask!
I used to see people with those long fruit pickers outside someone else's fence, stealing mangos off their trees all the time. You could tell by their body language it was unlikely they asked for permission.
When I was five, I was punished, for taking starfruit out of an elderly neighbor's yard, I've been pretty good since then.
One thing I'm am always tempted to do (but haven't) is throw my doggie #2 bag in people's rubbish bins!
When I lived in a condo (a pretty nice one at that, the amenities in that place were second to none), people not only stole the plant that was outside our door but also our door mat.
Wow, I'm so glad I'm not the only one who had experienced this and gotten mad! We live in a rental, but I've always meticulously kept the flowers because I love them. The other night, around midnight a car pulled up to our house and someone ripped all of a particular type out. I was in shock and almost opened the window to yell at them, but was too frozen in complete shock!
Here's my post about it: http://www.kohlercreated.com/blog/?p=11592
Oh, I've been tempted a few times to take cuttings from plants around my neighborhood and get them started in my own yard. But I do know better and I have never done it. There's the temptation and then there's the self control. Instead, I just went to my local nursery and found those same plants.
In my old rent house, we had a fig tree on one side of the front yard. It had sprouted tons of figs but we waited patiently for them to ripen. Apparently someone else did too because one day we went out to check and they were all gone. Gotta love those greedy thiefs.
I take care of a university teaching garden and people regularly cut flowers, take cuttings, seeds, pieces of plants, and whole plants. Someone walks around with clippers and always takes the best and foremost flower out of the middle of the plant. Really pisses me off. I have threatened to buy a "deer cam" and then post it on youtube!
a few months ago, I bought a tiny lemon tree, still in a flower pot, with one little green lemon on it. as soon as the lemon got yellow, someone came and pulled the entire plant from the pot from right outside my door! i was left with a hole in the dirt. and the worst thing is-I think someone just did it because they couldn't be bothered to go to the market and buy a lemon!
Another good use for a hose right? ;-)
This is just about the *only* thing our evil neighbors have not done to desecrate our property (although yesterday the neighbor's dog decided to dig up our garden....). Our neighbors have 7 kids - luckily for us the parents actually discipline them, unlike 99 percent of what I see these days. One of the kids came to say hi to me and asked if she could pick the flowers on our lawn - as she asked she bent down and proceeded to almost grab a handful of violets. I said, NO, you can't. If you want flowers, you can pick the ones on your lawn. I would not have been so firm if she hadn't already started reaching for them, LOL
We maintain a native plant lawn and people seem to take that to mean they are disposable weeds. I try to educate them on which wild animals depend on those plants and why ornamentals are so harmful.
@Ima, you hit the nail on the head. People these days when they don't get their way, demand favors as though they have no boundaries at all. I heard a report on NPR that this generation of teenagers think that unless something is hidden from sight, it is free to take and that is not stealing even if it's someone else's property. Isn't that scary? Lazy parenting caused this!
ps I saw the most stunning wildflowers on our neighbor's lawn (and this family is fairly poverty stricken)......there were hundreds of them. I aksed them if they knew the species and they said no. I simply complimented how pretty their lawn looked. Next thing I knew the owner was digging some flowers out and brought them over to me out of the kindness of her heart. You never know how generous someone will be!
If I'm not mistaken, taking fruit from trees overhanging the sidewalk is totally legal. At least here in Los Angeles. http://www.fallenfruit.org/
My mom lives in North Texas and instead of grass she has a beautiful rock garden with rocks she has collected and been given. She has had her rocks stolen a lot, including some large fossils. Many people are just plain rude.
In my case, the fruit was not hanging over the sidewalk. Legal or not, you will have a better relationship with your neighbors if you ask first.
We have a very productive lemon tree on our front yard so we pick some and put them on the fence with a card saying “you may take lemons”.
So many times we are sitting at our dinning table & looking at people outside, you can see they weren’t expecting that and then the nicest/amazing thing is that no one takes more than 1 or 2 lemons! :)
Last year someone vandalized our garden during the night
Next morning we found a vase kind of like this http://cdn.freshome.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/nature-planter3.jpg broken, it seemed like they threw it in the air, there were pieces all over the driveway :(
From Emmi’s comment: “think that unless something is hidden from sight, it is free to take and that is not stealing even if it's someone else's property”
I think so too, the illegal download phenomena, for example, people just think it’s ok to take someone’s work away without paying (still they wouldn’t work for free… weird sense of justice)
I remember when I was in high school, my mom had paid (money that she didn't have a lot to spare) to have our very small, sloping front yard landscaped. There were new, smallish bushes that were just put in, so their roots weren't very secure yet, and someone came in the middle of the night and dug them all out of the ground and took them away.
Just this year, where my mom lives now, the city put in a wide planting strip along the sidewalk, and then put in a whole bunch of plants, and someone came and dug a bunch of them up in the middle of the night.
I don't think it's right to pick someone's flowers or fruit off someone's tree, but I'm sure that often the people who are doing it really don't think they're stealing. But to come under cover of night and carefully dig up plants, with the obvious intention of replanting them, is stealing no matter how you slice it. People who do that know that the person (or the city) who originally planted the plants just paid A LOT of money at a nursery for them.
Pretty disgusting, if you ask me.
This makes me so sad, partly because I've heard SO many stories of gardeners who were happy to share when asked nicely! My aunt once needed blue flowers for a cousin's wedding and saw a row of beautiful blue-flowered shrubs. So she pulled over, knocked on the door, and asked a total stranger if she could have enough flowers for a bouquet. The gardener was so flattered she gave her enough for the whole wedding party!
That said, I haven't ever had to deal with a garden thief (other than the four-footed varieties). I think if there was a repeat offender around, I'd get myself a motion-activated sprinkler. Like this .
Someone came into our BACKyard and stole every last lemon on our lemon tree (and there were a lot of lemons). Who goes into someone's backyard? And, who takes every lemon? The only person that comes to mind is the Grinch.
Our 4yo helps us garden, so he understands how much work goes into planting something and doesn't pick from other people's yards. But, we also have a high-producing plum tree that we share with neighbors and allow the food bank to harvest each year.
There was a short blurb in our local paper last week about a planter that was stolen from someone's front yard. It wasn't expensive, but was simply a gift from a father to his 5yo and wife. The father had recently passed away and the wife had the sad task of explaining to her 5yo that there are bad, mean people in the world.
Stealing is stealing. The best thing to do is to ask first - many gardeners will offer cuttings or a flower or fruit.
I'd be *flaming* mad if anyone did any of the things listed above to my plants. Stealing. Simple as that. It's wrong, rude, and illegal.
I have a terraced front yard that I've put a LOT of work into, working it from barren clay to a fertile and lush, some might say over-grown, flower garden. There's a well-traveled sidewalk in front and we live in a neighborhood where people have no respect, littering, grafitti, and, of course, picking other people's flowers. My solution? Plant a Mermaid rose on the lowest tier. When you try to pick her flowers, she picks back viciously! What can I say? I'm a terribly spiteful gardener. >:)
I think the issue is that people lack common sense. If flowers or fruit are hanging over the sidewalk, it is legal as mmk pointed out and--in my opinion--acceptable to pick one or two if particularly abundant, not go to town harvesting the whole plant, hacking at it with clippers, or taking all that is left (tulips and apples mentioned above). In Hawaii, it's normal to pick a flower along the sidewalk and put it behind your ear. Plant owners don't mind sharing the love when it's done respectfully.
@mauishopgirl, sometimes I think there's something about Hawaii... When I was a kid and we moved to a new house in a nice neighborhood in Honolulu and were totally shocked by outright theft. Within 3 weeks of moving in, someone took a nice terra cotta planter with attached drip irrigator from a little wall on our driveway. They had to dismantle it to steal it!! Another time we had a garage sale where 2 people tried to dig out our flowering orchids in the front yard and give us a dollar for them. How about no? A house down the street has huge banana trees set 10+ feet back from the sidewalk. The owners had to resort to putting up an ugly rope and sign that says "KAPU (forbidden) to take bananas."
I think my neighbor stole some flowers a few months back. We actually called the police we were so certain about it. My mom made the misake of showing interest in the nieghbors car for sale and then I said we could not afford it. So she basically found out when our days off are which was another mistake. There was a large hole next to the flower with dirt removed and half the plant missing. It suddenly showed up around her tree in the front yard. Most of her flowers in the front are from he common areas in the neighborhood or the same flowers we have. I highly suspect she stole this flower. You have to be a person of low values and self respect to go thieving in someone else's yard in my opinion. It is just plain evil to destroy something other people are trying to make beautiful for the neighborhood. Needless to say I showed out, because this was 5 years of feeling intimidated and bullied by these annoying neighbors. We had to call the police and got a no trespass for harrassing, but maybe now everyone is watching, but I still think she would try to steal more dirt or flowers in the future. Its almost a sick kind of control issue some people have. Anyway, this is just a warning that all people may seem nice or want to be your friend, but usually they want something you have or a favor. The best advice is to be watchful and don't get too close to people, because the neighbors, friends and family are usually the ones to do the mischief. This is sad, because my mother gives away so many flowers from her garden, but I guess you can choose the high or low road in life.
Something similar is happening to me. My neighbor, who is originally from Guyana, constantly takes plants from my gardens without asking. She is sneaky and surreptitious about it, taking liberties of trespassing onto our property while we are away. Not only does she take cuttings of my plants but she also digs them up. Her back yard now looks very much like mine!! I can't believe the nerve of this person. I placed a note on one of the plants that she is digging up which said, "STOP! Stop helping yourself to my plants. This is called "stealing" and is illegal." My husband made me remove it. He is concerned that she and her husband will do mean things to us. It is a very frustrating situation! She obviously thinks that she can help herself to whatever her neighbors have! Does she not understand that this is called stealing???
I could see like a garden and plants or something that somebody worked hard on that was obviously planted near an inhabited home. But, as far as anything else..Quit being whiny stingy people. I'm talking about flowers on an abandoned property that nobody gives two craps about -nobody cared about these flowers until somebody took one.Give me a break. I think some people like reasons to complain and be crazy. The earth belongs to GOD and so do all the plants and animals in it.