The great lavender theft mystery

Uncalled for effalumo it’s called conversation ?

This is not about a garden and it happened a long time back but I still find it incredulous When my daughter started nurse training in London they had had a few thefts so when they got a new tv for the rest room it was bolted into the floor… move. on a few days and Tv completely disappeared bolts and all
Really is the pits isn’t it ?

A relative once spotted her in laws digging up her plants! She opened the window and said “ Can I help you? “ . The in law replied “ Oh, I just thought this plant would look lovely in my garden.” And removed it, without permission, from my relatives garden, while she watched. ???

Thanks Bluebelle and everyone for your varied and interesting contribtions. Fear not, effalump I have plenty to worry about at the moment but find that an occasional light-hearted foray onto GN takes my mind off the big stuff.

We moved into a block of flats with grass only as grounds. At a residents’ committee meeting, I offered to make a bed and plant up with some flowers, fretted with enthusiasm. Got some nice fuchsias from a local specialist nursery and planted them. They looked lovely, and we all gathered around with a glass of eine to view them. Next morning they were gone, I was so upset. Didn’t replant. Left the new bed empty.

*grr, greeted not fretted

And *wine not eine. Broke my own rule of previewing post

A friend saw someone removing rockery stones from a garden opposite. As it was the middle of the day she assumed they were having their garden redesigned. Wrong!

effalump that’s not the point as you very well know. Plenty of posters on here have plenty of things to worry about, serious things, upsetting things; but the point here is, this is theft, short and simple, and if you’re on the receiving end of that theft, it’s very upsetting, whatever is stolen. The other poster should not have to go to the expense of replacing her plants and I’d add that she has every right to put them in her front garden if she so wishes without some low life coming along thinking they have more right to them than she has.

A few years ago I bought my neighbours a shrub in a pot for their 50th wedding anniversary, they put it by their front door and after a few weeks it was gone!

It's maddening when we cant put things in our front gardens.
I live in a village but on the main road going through it and I daren't put any pots or hanging basket in the front garden since they went walkies from some friends gardens.
Garden theft has been happening here for quite a few years.
My brothers friend in the next village had quite a lot of plants dug up and stolen during the night the other year from his back garden.
Plants don't come cheap and the cost of replacing if you dare comes to quite a bit of money.
They'll take anything if it's not nailed down.

I came home from work once and as I pulled onto the drive I couldn't work out what looked different. It took me a moment to realise our hanging baskets had been stolen. ?

They'll take anything if it's not nailed down but if you read my post above even things that are bolted down go walk about

We had a conifer up rooted from our freshly planted hedge at the front of the house. It was found further down the road on someone’s car roof!

No flowers taken but my neighbour has had her catalictic converter taken from her car on the drive twice in the last 2 months. It is a very expensive thing to replace. I park my car right
against the fence now as I have the same make & model car as hers. We do have a motion sensitive security light that comes on if anyone comes
on the drive. It wasn't expensive so maybe try that.

Sorry BlueBelle, I always read every post but I think I must have commented before I'd read the last page.
I take back my words.
I often wonder where it all went wrong. When I moved into this house in 1997 I used to be able to go down to the local shops and not even lock my door and think nothing of it.
I remember there used to be cigarette, chewing gum, chocolate machines on shop walls in town.
The village doctors surgery was in a house and we collected the medication in the evening which was in a box on a stand in the back garden for all to open.
Sorry for side tracking but nothings safe these days.
Rant over

I have so many lovely plants in pots in my front garden. The huge box balls sell for over £50 each in the garden centre - mine have been grown from cuttings and nurtured for over 10 years.
I would be devastated if they were to disappear.
I have never heard of anything going missing in my area. Now I am wondering how to secure them.

Pots of plants are regularly stolen from front gardens in the town where I live. We daren't put anything nice in our front garden.

At my old house I had two life size bronze lion garden statues, twelve feet up on top of the original garage roof supports.

I always worried about them when we went away on holiday, but thought my neighbours would notice if anyone tried to take them. Wrong! When I'd sold the house and was still moving out, they saw a van stop and load my green bin and 'thought I'd arranged it'? Cost me £39 to get a new one.

I was moving into a new flat, I had arranged for the coalman to leave 2cwt of coal for me. 2 days after it was delivered it, someone stole it from my coalbox in the yard. No chance of getting it returned I'm sure it was already up in smoke.

I live in a town centre and the pub down the road regularly has its rosemary plants removed from the planters. Stoically, they replant them and so far they've stayed put. I suspect it's alcohol-fuelled silliness because there are some lovely planters outside people's doors here which don't get moved. I personally don't put plants outside, mainly because I don't want them used as a loo.

In the 70s I had a border in my front garden which was filled with primulas of all colours, but one of them was a really beautiful peach colour. Everyone remarked on the colour. I got up one morning to find it was missing, someone had obviously come along with a spade and carefully removed it. I have looked for one like it ever since, especially at the market stall where I bought it, but have never seen one.

It has happened to me. A previous next door neighbour asked if she could pick some lavender to make into lavender bags, we thought for her personal use.

Later we found she had stripped our lavender bushes almost bare.

Lavender bushes are not expensive to buy, yet although that person is not longer next door, my bushes were stolen, as were replacements. Rosemary is another herb which disappears.

Sorry to hear this and yes: our neighbours cctv caught an elderly lady with a wheelie shopping trolley putting her hand through our railings and unearthing just one geranium. She popped in her bag and never looked back.
Apart from being astonished we didn’t do anything further.

I also had a garden gnome made from concrete stolen from my garden one night. He was perched on a rockery in the middle of my front garden and weighed a huge amount. I had hand painted him myself. I reported the theft to the police. As i was explaining what had happened a couple of people walked in and stood near me. The policeman winked at me and asked what he was wearing. I said a red jacket, green trousers, little black shoes and a yellow cap. The look on their faces faces was amazing. Then we all started to laugh as they realised I was talking about a gnome. Sorry to say he was never found.

There are inspection covers on pavements near us that have "NO SCRAP METAL VALUE" embossed on them!!!!!