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Stolen plants!

kasjkkasjk Posts: 137
in The potting shed
Just woke up this morning to find out that a potted acer and a potted salix helvetica have been stolen from the side of my house during the night. My first question is, are times seriously that desperate that people are now stealing plants? And my second question is, have you ever had plants stolen from your garden, potted or planted in the ground?
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  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I haven't, but I've read that it's a bad idea to leave labels on plants in front garden as thieves can tell they've just been planted.
    I also read of someone who woke up to find their newly turfed lawn had been rolled up and taken away
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • kasjkkasjk Posts: 137
    Goodness me! They stole your garden bench!! The balls of some people is unreal.
    To be fair though, the pots were nothing special, in fact one was just the plastic one from the garden centre. I'm more annoyed by the fact that the acer was just leafing out and now I won't get to enjoy that 😔
  • Ante1Ante1 Posts: 3,085
    Five years ago I planted a quince tree in my front garden at cottage. Last year small tree was covered with quinces. I was happy to have my own fruits until one night someone took them all and broke few branches. It was very sad feeling.

    Croatia
  • Ladybird4Ladybird4 Posts: 37,906
    That is absolutely the lowest of the low. Unfortunately these days where you hope that all communities will be joined together, there will still be a tiny percentage of selfish, horrible people who ruin things for others.
    Cacoethes: An irresistible urge to do something inadvisable
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    My daughter left her wheelbarrow outside her front door while she made a cuppa. By the time it was brewed, the WB was gone. But my mum used to tell a story about looking out of her upstairs window to observe a man carefully removing plants from over the low wall, shaking off the soil and popping them into a bag. This was before the second world war. Nothing is new.
  • kasjkkasjk Posts: 137
    Stealing in general is just the lowest of the low, I would never dream of taking anything that belongs to someone else. So to have some plants nicked is just unbelievable to me, how desperate can a person get haha?? Oh well, I suppose a little bit of karma will come their way as the expandable hose they also stole has a hole in it and doesn't work, I was just going to throw it out but they've done that job for me without realising :)
  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
    edited April 2020
    I don't reckon garden "ornaments" in general, but was delighted to find a pair of (to me) tasteful and lifelike ducks in a second hand shop.  They grazed on my front lawn for six months but "flew away" overnight.

    A friend of mine bought a couple of acres of agricultural land to develop it as a wildlife sanctuary, dug a big pond and planted lots of trees.  But he got fed up of schlepping his garden tools back and forth, so he built a shed on it and fitted it with a substantial lock.  They stole the shed.

    I heard a story, possibly apocryphal, of a man who carefully unpacked his new washing machine without damaging the packaging, packed the old one in it, and left it on his drive.  The local ne'er-do-wells saved him a trip to the dump.
  • kasjkkasjk Posts: 137
    Haha, no way! How can you even steal a shed?? 
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    edited April 2020
    There really are some despicable people around @kasjk , but you'll possibly find that your acer and willow will be on sale somewhere - try social media. Facebook - that sort of thing, or even eBay. At a time when people can't get to GCs, they will buy online, and it's another way for scumbags to enlarge their profits. 
    They had a discussion a few years ago on the radio about thefts, and a woman had several very large, very heavy containers taken from her front garden. She'd only just finished planting them up.  They won't be deterred by heavy pots, even ones which are chained/bolted down. They go 'equipped'.
    I remember the chap at the local tyre centre I use, telling me that when they viewed their house, it was ideal as they had a small dog, and there was a new fence surrounding the main garden. When they moved in - the vendors had taken the fence with them. 
    It's not just the usual thieves who are dodgy....
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • PurpleRosePurpleRose Posts: 538
    I bought my mum a very heavy statue for her 40th birthday. They had been out and when they turned onto their street there was a wheel Barrow outside a house. They never really paid much attention as they were on the other side of the road and they thought that the wheel Barrow wascmaybe being used by whoever's house it was outside. When they got home, they noticed all the contents of the wheel Barrow were chucked all over and the statue had gone. My dad thought about the random wheelbarrow at the bottom of the road and went to have a look. Sure enough, it was their wheelbarrow and covered up inside was the statue.

    The statue was very heavy. My thoughts are that the thieve/s who had taken it had given up because of the weight of it.  If they would have decided to sell it, I am sure they would have been caught as it was a one off. It was reported to the police and they actually caught the person in the act a few months later in someone's garden taking garden staues. Apparently, there had been loads of reports to the police about it over a summer.
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