Some years ago I pondered long and hard over fancy chrysantheums before deciding which four I would order from a mail order nursery. Carefully planted and nurtured in the front garden, they developed into beautiful plants just beginning to flower. And then one morning I got up to find four holes where my plants had been.

Funnily enough, the following flowering season my next door neighbour's front garden was sporting the very same selection that I had made!

This very nasty woman provided the catalyst for our decision to sell up and move on. I still have plants pinched but the neighbours are normal.

I used to fantisise about fixing a couple of strands of barbed wire or cementing shards of broken glass along the top of the fence. Aahh ... the evil thoughts one can come up with!

Do remember though that even if a person has no legal right to be on your property, if s/he sustains an injury because of your actions (setting the rabbit traps, or leaving the coil of barbed wire on the path) then s/he has the right to sue you for damages.

Make sure you (a) have adequate public liability insurance and (b) you secure a gaol sentence for your plant thief - it's harder to run a successful legal case from inside.

"fh^*ea432hfdla@&#*%!!!" I can't stand stealing!!!

I've had a problem with theivery. However it hasn't been plants but the products I intend to use on them. Someone stole pesticide for my roses which I had left out on our porch one day whilst browsing at the nursery and two pairs of old gardening boots have dissapeared more than a few times. I'm a size five ladies... could it be gnomes perhaps???

I think the best way to get people to stop stealing is put up lighting. Not the garden variety which is more beneficial to the theif! But a sensor spot light or a bright downlight that highlights your plants and deters people at the same time.

Nothing like a senser attached to a glaring spotlight I say. Have a few strung up so that if someone steps into your flower beds at night a spot light hits them from several different angles.

If I could figure out how to do it, I'd have a bloody siren attached to those sensers as well.

If your bedroom window looks out onto your front garden then you'll need thick blinds or shutters.

I doubt if anyone would want to be stealing from you if it's well lit up.

Hope this helps!

Desi

I used to keep my gardening fork and spade in the back garden (too lazy to unlock the shed) - until last year. One day they were just gone. I live on a corner, the back yard ha reasonably easy access but is well screened and the tools used to live near the compost bins, which could only be seen if someone came into the yard - or looked over the 2 metre colorbond fence between my backyard and the rented property next door. I knew the latest tenants had been gardening - I'd heard them digging. Probably planting a cash crop.

Being a particularly "angry woman" I was all for marching up to their front door and demanding my property back. But my family was dead against this - how did I know it was them, etc. So I devised THE PLAN. I wrote a note asking if I could I please have my garden fork and spade back, and crept around the corner in the wee small hours of the morning under cover of darkness and popped it in their letter box. I figured that if they weren't the culprits they might think the note was for the previous tenants. And they would have had no idea who wrote the note.

Two days later I went out the back and what was lying on the grass? I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when they read the note - they are probably still trying to figure out how I knew where my implements had gone.

I'm out for blood.

Each anniversary of his death my sister always places into the ground a beautiful white orchid plant in a pot that was his favourite. Some absolutely unspeakable, selfish git stole it this year. She went out and bought another just the same, at some considerable expense, and, guess what, it was stolen again.

I really sympathise with MPPI. I cannot imagine to what depths people have plummeted who have to steal flowers and plants from others. The monetary value is negligible compared to other things that they could steal but apparently other things are much harder to get. These people aren't even clever thieves.

Gardeners are attempting to create beauty for all to see. These despicable lame-brains are not taking from just one person, they're taking from all of us.
Barb

I'm feeling somewhat safe from snitchers at the moment. We are still drought declared, facing even further restrictions (a small daily allowance - pay heaps for what is used over that amount) and the ground is DRY and rock hard. They'd need a back hoe!!

I am going to set up a 'sculpture' right down the front of my garden soon. I'd like to see theives try to pinch it - I'm planning a smaller version of stonehenge... hahahahaha

Robyn