I am sorry, Melissa. But there is a bright side to this - your garden must be beautiful enough for someone to specifically come back for your roses.
Masha

The bright side of this is that you are making room to place other unwanted roses there. I always feel a bit guilty throwing a good rose away just because I don't like it's blooms and would love to be able to do like you and put them in a very far away part of the property. Just as long as your main garden is never violated by this thief. I don't condone it, but you could use it in a positive way. Take care then, Melissa.

Chance

When we planted the local City Park garden, several roses were stolen.
I have never been so astonished -- but apparently it is not at all uncommon.

I had trouble justifying the idea of people who would steal, with people who loved roses,
but concluded in the end that they stole them to give or sell to someone else.

Idiots.

Jeri

I find much human behavior simply astonishing. I'm so sorry you had to experience this indignity, and I'm glad that at least they were roses you didn't much like.

Rosefolly

In our local public rose garden the display of 'Black Jade's has to be replanted on a regular basis because they invariably get stolen. I used to believe that gardeners were always inherently "good people". The facts suggest this is not always the case. What kind of a creep goes to a public display garden and digs out plants and takes them home???

I detest a thief! I hope Karma comes around and takes a huge bite out of their butts!

Deb

Melissa, How stupid for someone to do! I'm sorry for that. Senseless acts of immaturity. This gives you reason to order more. :0)

Carla

Melissa, maybe you need some armed roses?

{{gwi:238993}}

Wont they be surprised when that Duc de Cambridge looks like mutant aliens..well aphids to them anyway...

patricia

I used to believe that gardeners were always inherently "good people". The facts suggest this is not always the case. What kind of a creep goes to a public display garden and digs out plants and takes them home???

*** It's a complete disconnect.
I still think it makes no sense.

Jeri

Around here you have to watch out the night before Mother's Day. What kind of kid steals a present to bring to Mom?

Well it certainly makes no sense and it disturbs me that some one who "cares" about plants would do this. I'm sorry but I'm also really mad.

I updated an old, dried-out wreath some years back, adding some dried flowers from my garden and a bow, and hung it on my porch at Christmas time. I also put pine cones in an old basket. I couldn't believe it when they disappeared. The dried flowers fell off, leaving a trail across the porch and lawn - I followed down the street, thinking that they probably would just throw the worthless stuff away once they realized what they had. No such luck. It certainly taught me that it's not just the value of what is taken that is upsetting, it's the fact that somebody has violated your property.

Another time, somebody took a small sago palm that I had setting in a pot in full view of the street.

If I were going to steal something (which I'm NOT), I'd want to take something of value! Those little palms go for about $12 at Home Depot. I've heard of people digging up larger ones, or plants like Japanese maples - that makes more sense, because some of them sell for hundreds of dollars!

In the cemetery rose garden, we've had more trouble with vandalization. Somebody took a dislike to a fortuniana that we'd planted - cut it to the ground three times, and on the third time emptied a box of rock salt around it. We never did figure THAT out - there are no grave markers in the plot, so we don't think there are living family members, and the rose was pretty small and innocuous in those days. It's now the size of a shed, so it recovered, but we still shake our head in wonder at what people will do.

So sorry that happened to you, Melissa!
Anita

In some cases -- like the roses we lost from the city garden -- I think they're
taken by, umm -- cheapo hired gardeners. Who then sell 'em to unsuspecting clients.
In the case of the things Anita lost -- maybe kids???

But in things like the vandalism at the Cemetery -- that just has to be people who are mentally ill.
Mental instability takes all sorts of forms . . .

But how sad. :-(

Jeri

My mother in law had 4 blooming roses ripped out of her front yard. She happened to drive by a house not far from hers and there were her 4 roses newly planted in the thief's front yard. Myself, I would have called the cops, gone to the front door and thrown the book at them. She just waited......and sure enough, they died. Sad for the roses, but just what the rose thief deserved. I still would have confronted the bum......Probably the roses they stole wont live Melissa and their efforts will have been wasted. Sweet revenge!!
Judith

If we made a list of all the things that people do to each other and to themselves, it would be horrifying to read or think about. Meanness and hate take all forms and is everywhee.

But we still have to keep planting and trying, don't we? I'd hate to think that theft or meanness or hate would cause us to stop planting for the joy it give us and others.

I'm just glad the vandalism was limited to roses at the edge of Melissa's land. I'd either plant roses with a lot of thorns to discourage the theft or plant something beautiful and just hope if it gets stolen it's going to be well loved somewhere by someone. I think we lose if we give up or become jaded.

So sorry to hear of your loss Melissa. This has brought about a fear of mine. I am currently looking for a home (one with enough garden space of course) and when deciding what roses to put in the front yard vs. the back I thought I should put my rare ones in the back so they are protected. My husband tried to assure me that no one would take them, or mangle them, but now I am not so sure after reading this post. If someone wants something so bad, can't they just knock on the door and ask for a cutting?? I guess that takes patience, obviously something a thief lacks.

Masha, Chance, Jeri, Paula, trospero, Deb, Carla, Gean, Patricia, hoovb, Pam, Anita, Judith,

Thank you all for your sympathy! I knew I'd get a lot of kindness when I wrote this.

About thorns, 'Parkzauber' is a mighty thorny rose. It's the result of a mad cross by Wilhelm Kordes between 'Nuits de Young', the darkest moss around, and 'Independence' ('Kordes Sondermeldung'), the first Floribunda colored by pelargonidin, a brilliant orange-red. Wow. No wonder it turned out such an impossible color. 'Parkzauber' is also once-blooming and gaunt in growth, and I doubt if its new owner will get much satisfaction from it. And of course, if I ever spot it in someone's garden, I'll know exactly where they got the rose from. Same for 'Duc de Cambridge'. Eventually our hedge will be able to take care of itself: all the roses are on their own roots and I predict will become an impenetrable thorny mass; and most of these roses sucker more or less.

About people who steal roses and other garden plants. Probably there are people who steal to sell or give away plants. Concerning people who take plants for their own gardens, I think they illustrate the difference between gardeners and people who just want a garden. Gardeners want beautiful plants and abundance of blooms, naturally; but they also want to see the seeds sprout and the cuttings root; they want to see the baby plant grow and the roses leaf out in spring. Gardeners are interested in creation and growth. People who steal plants just want the finished product, and probably wouldn't care if the plant were plastic as long as the imitation was convincing.

Of all these depressing anecdotes the one that strikes me as bizarre is the unknown individual who tried to kill the Fortuniana. That IS strange!!

I totally agree with Gean's last comments. Thanks for reminding us not to give up!

Melissa

hodgepodge roses,

Sorry I missed you; you evidently posted your message while I was writing mine.

I think you would be wise to keep your rare roses where passers-by can't get at them, and in general not put anything in your front beds that you would really mind losing. In Washington state I had a row of Hybrid Teas planted along the road. I used to get mad when people would steal the flowers--though nobody ever took the plants, so I guess you could say I was lucky--but when I underplanted them with bulbs I put small varieties like crocuses and chionodoxas I thought people wouldn't want to pick.

All this reminds of my sister who installs and maintains gardens as part of her work. She used to leave her garden tools, rakes, shovels, etc., unprotected in the back of her truck. She said that no thief would want them because the only thing you could do with them was work. She never lost a tool.

Melissa

Hi Melissa,
Sorry about your roses. I feel your pain - we used to live in a community where "ag theft" was a widely reported crime. Over the years, I have had quite a few things stolen. The biggest surprise: We had ten 10'-15' royal palms dug up and stolen from the front of our property! This would have required the use of heavy equipment and more than 1 person. The neighbors didn't think to question the thieves, they assumed that we were selling the palms, which people commonly do here in Fla. Unfortunately, this type of theft is very common in that area. Landscapers just re-sell the stolen plants and trees - sometimes at the local flea markets, sometimes the plants go right back in the ground in a landscape project. Some plant nurseries have taken to spray-painting and scarring their plants for identification.

We ( and our plants!)are much safer in the community where we now live, although I have been told not to place orchid plants anywhere they can be seen from the street...

Hope that you don't experience anymore problems.
Avalon

Worst that ever happened to me was the theft of a row of blue spruces along the front edge of my pasture which were planted as a wind screen. Took 7 years for them to get to a nice size and then they disappeared. Drove all over looking for them, but they left the neighborhood. Sadly, at the arboretum where I work we cannot label any of the perennials as this seems to cause theft. Still, many daylilies, heucheras, and hellebores show the scars of having been dug into. Little consolation that they don't take the whole thing, as a pie-shaped slice rather ruins the effect of the clump. It's just an icky feeling and I'm so sorry that happened.

We are in the process of developing a public botanic garden in northern Michigan. A friend who had been director of another public garden warned us about 'night farmers' - folks who sneak in at night and steal plants. Amazing! Frustrating!

You know, every so often, I see people set up near an intersection or by the side of a road, selling a handful of gorgeous plants. I always said to my husband that I was sure they were stolen from someone who was building a new landscape, or from a nursery. I would NEVER consider purchasing from someone like that, or from a flea market either, for just that reason.

We also see a fella selling used canoes (cheap) by a busy intersection not too far from the Silver Springs River, where we canoe a lot. We always felt that he makes his rounds , perhaps in other states, stealing these canoes. We could be wrong.....

Melissa, and everyone else who has had plants and flowers stolen, I feel for you. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I sure will be upset when, or if, it does. I have had many other items stolen off of my property. We never leave a garage door open anymore unless we are outside. I guess my plants would be too much work for them. I laugh when my neighbors say how "safe" we are because our community is gated.

Melissa, I'm so glad they weren't any prized roses, but still, you must feel very violated. I don't undertsand the mentality of peopole, who think that just because they want what is yours, they have a right to just take it!

Sandy

I'm with Jeri; it's hard for me to wrap my mind around gardeners stealing plants. I'm always delighted to shar my bounty with folks.

How can people look at stolen plants in their gardens and know where and how they got them without feeling any sense of guilt? Stolen plants should not propsper in a thief's garden.
-terry

How awful!

It certainly taught me that it's not just the value of what is taken that is upsetting, it's the fact that somebody has violated your property.

Yes, I agree. Ugh.

Unbelievable stories. I guess I underestimate the derelict forms of humanity that roam out there.

Worst I've had was some idiot, right down the road dug up some of my precious bluebonnets (you can't transplant wild flowers for pete's sake)...and put them in his front bed. Well...anyone who knows me at all, knows that I am the neighborhood runner and I will notice that when I jog by.

Idiot. When I saw them a few days later, dying out front, he was out there with a hose I asked him "gee where did you steal those bluebonnets from?" I answered my own question, by saying "don't do it again because I will press charges the next time and by the way, you can't transplant wildflowers".

This thread makes my blood pressure go up. Grrr...Melissa, what fools. What utter fools. Makes me want to go with suggestion I read somewhere how they grew Mermaid along their whole front property boundary, and that did do the trick in discouraging would be marauders.

Wicked thorns. Big wicked thorns. Grr!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:238992}}

This builds a case for using Toxicodendron diversilobum as a companion plant for roses.

It's all upsetting and in many cases there's not that much a person can do. Our best action is keep on gardening, taking what precautions we can. It somewhat satisfied my desire for vengeance to think that these persons have to live with themselves and the consequences of their behavior full time. I tend to think that's punishment enough.

Melissa

This sort of thing happened to me in Houston and New Orleans.
Here, in the boondocks, it hasn't. I even have a neighbor who has rocking chairs on her porch and they aren't secured by chains.

Reality is a b@tch. Too many people have no moral anchor.

(Now, every time I look at my fortuniana I'll smile for the one out in California that had the strength to live.)

Thats sad!