Last night I ran into a friend in front of her condo building. She pointed to an area beside the entrance and said, “Our plants have been stolen.”
“Stolen!”
“Yep. The ones you’re looking at are replacements. The first ones got stolen.”
“How? When?”
“I don’t know. Everyone’s emailing about it.” Just then another condo resident walked by with her dog. I figured she’d planted them, since she’s a gardener and works at a garden center, but no! It was in fact a different condo owner who did the planting, and then replanting. However, the gardening expert had happened to walk by at the exact moment when the non-gardening expert was doing the planting! “They looked lovely,” she noted. “Then, an hour later, I came back and they were gone. Just like that.”
We all shook our heads. “I tried to tell myself it was just some kid wanting to bring flowers to Mommy,” said the gardening expert, “but these were whole plants, roots and all.” So someone was watching, waiting for their chance. Waiting for the non-gardening expert to finish. They brought their box or bag, dug out the plants, and fled the scene.
Why would you steal plants? You can’t sell them. You can’t eat them. It seems like either you’re someone who loves flowers and doesn’t steal, or you’re someone who steals and doesn’t give a shit about flowers. Yet there is a third category, someone who loves flowers and steals them. How many people are in this category? Two percent? Fifty percent? Where have I been?
This morning I walked past the crime scene. The woman who’d done the planting was just parking out in front. “Oh my God, I heard about your flowers!” I yelled as she got out of her car.
“Yeah,” she smiled, “I’m happy.”
“Huh?”
“Oh yes. I’m lucky I had these ones left over. They’re pretty, too.”
“Yeah, they’re very nice.” I admired the new, modest, rather sparsely planted flowers. “But still, someone stealing your flowers, oh my God!”
“Oh, the ones I put first were too pretty,” she said. “They looked like that.” The thieves had left exactly one of the old flowers. Actually it didn’t look that special to me, but maybe it was the runt. “You can’t plant things that pretty,” she added. “I like these ones. I’m happy with how it looks.”
The non-gardening expert went back to re-park her car. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t upset. Double mystery!
Wow. This actually happened to our building last year. We had a shrub stolen. It was this cool pine-ish shrub that was growing in a circular pattern. Nothing special, but someone stole it from right in front of our building. I would have to guess clandestine landscaping company? Really doesn’t seem worth the trouble though.
remember the little flowering shrubs i planted at the edge of the walkway on sacramento? they were gone in a day. and the nice people who took them left us two nice holes in which to insert new plants. i think i was too surprised to be mad…must be the same kind of people who steal lawnmowers. too bad they didn’t want aerating shoes….
My birth father has a landscaping business in Greenville OH. He planted flowers for the library last year, and someone stole them exactly the same way, digging up the roots and all. In the middle of the night. So they got up and snuck over to the library with flashlights and shovels?? The mentality of it seems exceedingly strange to me, too. I didn’t realize it was an entire syndrome. Then what do they do, just plant the stolen goods in their own yard?
All these comments are making me wonder if we are shopping for plants in entirely the wrong way.