Remember that in public parks and gardens the seeds too belong to somebody. You may not think that a few seeds make any difference but it is quite possible that they are being watched carefully buy the people in charge. Here's an example from a garden in the UK: "Seed heads of valuable plants are put in bags to catch the seeds. A Royal Himalayan Poppy - Papaver regalis - was taken in its entirety. It's a fairly rare plant and has to be imported under licence, whoever took it knew what they were taking.We try now to move rarer plants just a bit away from the boundary. It's a bit of a devil really, and very upsetting when it happens."

Here is a link that might be useful: Seed theft

Speaking of throwing away plants I remember back when I worked at a K-mart and they threw out all the seeds after the season passed. That made me sad.

I know kids like to collect pine cones and acorns (from school ground, a park or the walk home) Do you guys think children are wrong to do this and their parents should tell them that it is bad. I personally don't think it is bad, after all the plants went to a lot of trouble to make seeds worth noticing and moving to new locations by animals (humans included). I do feel that no one should be taking any cuttings without asking.

I was visiting the Alamo a few years ago with my mother. Behind the building is a wonderful garden with many Texas Native plants. We were talking about the plants and really enjoying walking in the cool shade, when just out of habit I reached down to deadhead one of the spent blooms. It was like a bomb went off, the security guard grabbed my hand before I could close my fingers on the flower, loudly repremanded me for the attempted theft of 'historic property' and ordered me to leave the grounds immediately or I would be arrested and jailed. My elderly mother was horrified and nearly fell down, I was so surprised and mortified I was speechless, and the other 150 or so visitors in the garden stopped in their tracks to see who was stealing Dan'l Boones Coonskin Cap!

So, let that be a lesson to everyone here, if you visit the Alamo, you better not touch ANYTHING there, not a leaf, not a twig, not a stone. I didn't even intend to keep the spent bloom for the seeds, and we all know how hard it is to walk past one, don't we? But I can't think about deadheading without remembering that moment when I was caught in the act of that heinous crime. My mom still doesn't think it's funny and it was 7 years ago. Cheryl

The philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that something is only good if it would still be good/right if the act was done universally. By that logic, taking clippings and seeds from public places would be wrong because that plant would die if everyone took a piece. Personally I don't believe this applies to stealing plant parts because I don't see them as property in the same way as a car is property.

When I hear about companies patenting seeds and plants it really annoys me. I think we have a duty to spread seeds and plants as much as we can so the world has a lot of variety. It's not like I'm running around stealing rose bushes or cutting off branches to root lol.

i would not like someone to walk past my garden and take a clipping. perhaps i should walk past their house and take a shingle.

OMG!!! My friend sold her house and unfortunately, she passed away a few months later. Her daughter let her friend go to take plants from the property. They were going to tear it down and build a new house. Well, the dorky friend went there with a BACKHOE and dug up everything she could.

The guy called the police and said he was owed 10 grand for all the plants. So, went back with the backhoe and she replanted them.

Now that take some really BIG... NERVE. I cannot believe someone would take a backhoe.

Billie

Yep, big nerve, small brain. hee!

Oh and BTW, Hooper, I got extra shingles in the garage, just ask.

hee!

A guy I use to work with had a friend who sold his land for a medical center- well after the place was "gutted"- DH and I , along with my 17 year old son went and dug up 3 blue spruces- took the brick off the fireplace and dug up 2 mugo pines!
The bricks now outline my flower beds- the blue spruces house 2 dove nests and the mugos are huge! ( I never expected all to live) but figured they would be bulldozed and what did I have to lose besides sweat?
I didnt steal I took the opportunity and ran with it!!

Amen!!!

thats some dang strong IRis's that they can grow in that stuff! Do they like your nice garden soil or are ya gonna have to make up a cement bed? hee!

I put them in semi-decent soil (which is all any iris needs!), some in full sun, some in bright shade...
& they all bloomed this year!

That's great, Sylvia! You know I never hestitate to ask - ever - for a seed pod or cutting. The folks at the Dallas Arboretum used to be very generous with bits of sedums and seed pods - we live 1/2 mile away and were there every day. Now that it's gotten so much bigger, forget it. They did let me have some really cool pumpkins and several hay bales they were going to toss after Halloween last year. The pumpkins rotted in the backyard and are growing all over the place now.

Some of you may know that I have had a deal with Lowes in my area for nearly a year now. When they have lots of clearance racks, the nursery manager calls me with a price for it all, and I haul it all back to my house. It's a lot of work for me, but they make it worth my while with a great price as long as I haul it all away, including dead stuff.

2 weeks ago I stopped in and was going through about 20 racks of clearance trying to figure out how much I'd be able to take in just a few kid-free hours. I was informed that a vice president had come through, didn't like that the clearance was being sold cheap and hauled off, and now they are no longer allowed to sell at a pre-tax package price to me or anyone else. Clearance is back to straight 50% off, and after a week, it goes to the locked dumpster. It's a disgusting waste. In the past year, I have donated more plants to our 4-H club's community service projects, schools, plant lovers in my neighborhood who could not otherwise afford to build a pretty new flowerbed, etc. I've got plenty at this point, and it was a blessing while it lasted - but the waste... I can hardly stand to think about it. This time of year there are at least 20 racks of plants going in the dumpster every week.

By the way, all that plastic is also going in the dumpster. When I was hauling it off, the plastic was reused or recycled.

Let's all call Lowes HQ and complain lol.

That is one of the reasons I hate the "BIG BOX STORES", but what are you going to do? They are EVERYWHERE. I used to have the same type of deal with a clerk at a nearby Target. He always let me have the clearance plants dirt cheap. Now I grow most of what I want from seed or swap for it. I only buy the really big things like trees.

Billie

I'm doing the same thing now. I stop by Lowes to check out clearance once a week - they do get some really nice plants at this particular store. If I bring something home, it's a nice one that's easily propogated so I can spread them out/share/swap.

i agree, ask, i went to taco tico, they have them pretty plants, and if they are going to clip them back, they just throw them away, so i asked if i could have some clippings, boy did i score!! LOL i really do always ask, i believ in the fact of what comes around goes around, and i know it'd tick me off if someone stole from me!! even a clipping or seeds, just ask and heck, you'll recieve lots!! i don't have a problem sharing!! :'))

This is a matter of ethics pure and simple; the solution is easy. If it was my business, my property, my fence, my plant, my trash; would I look twice at somebody else taking a part of it away? If I owned that 'abandoned' property and just couldn't care for it as often as I want, or if I'd promised the bulbs from the front yard to an employee, I hadn't been able to give a raise to for the last 2 years, would I be offended if they disappeared?

If so, you need to ask, PERIOD. What you might receive in return is a phone call the next time they have a lot of plants in a yard they don't think should just be turned under. You might have a construction company call you 6 months later and see if you want to demo an old 'worthless' greenhouse.

On the other hand, I don't see any problem with picking ripe blackberries from overgrown and unmaintained growth beside a road, picking fruit from trees that haven't been pruned in 20 years and giving them a clean-up in the process. Grabbing some seed from the local patch of cattails and planting 50% of them to continue the crop for next year.

Cuttings from an employee: I seriously don't think that was their's to give away, even if it was trash. But once it's in the trash... or if the company had a 'policy' about selling/giving away sub-standard products that might not be an issue. If one of my employees was breaking/trimming a plant to give it away I'd be ticked, but if they cleaned up the culls and set them out as freebies (with my knowledge), I'd be happy with their initiative, as they provided a free but bonus perk for ALL of my customers, make up a sign and keep that box full of potential, but compost the rest as it degrades.

Your mileage may vary, just as all our ethics will.

Nom

Problem is that the managers don't see it as a possible plus for the planet and their sales. All they see is they are losing a sale by giving things away. The person that takes that free plant won't buy one that is the same but in better shape in management's mind. They don't think that if someone knows they might be able to pick up a few "trash" pots making it worth the stop and they just might buy a few things each time they are in. If I don't have a reason to stop somewhere, my time and fuel are too precious to take the "off" chance they might have something good. However, if I know that the stop might be beneficial to me in some way, I will stop and maybe I will buy that honeysuckle I have been dying to put in where the sweet peas were. I think the throwing away the pot that cost them "nothing", costs those greedy managers a lot more than they realize.

Billie

Don't do anything you would not like to see on the front page of your local paper. So many people walk around with a cell phone camera these days.

Now here's how I got a major source of free plants. I stopped and asked the people tearing down a house where their office was. Then I went over there and asked about garden plants from houses to be torn down in the future and was given some addresses. All I had to do was dig them up on the day before the house was destroyed. Foundation plants will be destroyed when they run over them. Also, if your city has planted in the traffic dividers ask the employees when you see them changing plants if you can have the old ones.

I may have told this here before, please forgive me if so:

A *very* frugal friend told me that she stopped at an estate sale in a "McMansion" area & overheard a couple talking about the new house they were going to put on the site when they knocked down the old house & bulldozed the lot.

Tina asked them what they were going to do with the garden plants, & they shrugged & said the garden was a goner & she was welcome to any/all/whatever.

She didn't have a shovel with her, but there was one at the estate sale.

The price was $6, & she didn't need another shovel...
so she rented it for $2!

After much teasing from hubby, I now ask. It embarresses him to death:) I pick up pieces and at the check out I ask the little ck out girl if I can have them. They always say yes, I also ask the home owners if possible, met a lot of neat people, and no one has told me no-yet

also here in ks or in our area on the area between the road and the ditch i believe, a neighbor who is on the council, said that, its legal to dig anything you find on that property, its not the "owners" persay. if they're in the country, i'm like cool!! cuz ya can find some cool stuff!! just don't leave like a hole!! i'm big about that, and never cross that ditch line!! and if someone is near i would for surely ask!! LOL just to be polite!! :'))

We had neighbors pull up our newly planted pines (and plant them right where we could see them later), and deny that they did it. We had been gone for 10 minutes to get water, as they watched us plant.

We also have people come on our place and pick raspberries that are near the road, but the last guy started tromping through the bushes and made a real mess. They were parked in full view of our house. I guess the 'no trespassing' sign wasn't meant for them. >:(

Then one lady asked me if she could have a cutting from my one white lilac. I told her that I was going up to my parents over the weekend, and could get her one there, since that was where I got my white lilac in the first place (and my parents are always pulling out lilacs that pop up). So I told her to come back monday. I had a few ones for her, and she NEVER SHOWED UP! Figures. People around here are so messed up.

I don't take stuff, except once I did take some daylilly pods from some landscaping in front of a restaurant. That's really all I did.

I have a guy who brings his son into my yard to look at my bird feeders and garden decorations. Freaked me out the first time, I had the window open and I hear voices right next to the huge azalea bush. I don't mind but it was weird.

I'd check on that side-of-the-ditch information.

Here, the city or county or state owns only the street itself, & the rest belongs to the homeowner.

Even inside a city, the strip between sidewalk & street is often an easement where the city has the right to tramp across it, but the homeowner owns it & is responsible for maintaining it.

If the city or county mows & maintains it...maybe.
but I'd still check.

I once had a builder put his "home for sale" sign on the parking lot in front of my *real estate office*!

I laid it down & called him to come get it, & he went ballistic, saying that the parking lot belonged to the city & I couldn't tell him not to put his sign there.

Actually, the city didn't even "own" the street in front of the office;
it was on a road easement that belonged to me!

Words were exchanged, & I had to get the police to discuss the matter with him.

I'd hate to put myself in the same position by picking plants off property before I ascertained for myself who the owner was.

I steal plants, cutting and seeds. I do think it's totally wrong, but I only take the smallest of many plants. Like succulents (very easy to propogate) I just break a piece off and walk away. Others (like marigolds) I find dead flowers and break them off to collect the seeds. Sometimes I take whole plants but are the smallest of a group of them.

Several years ago, I was visiting an elderly lady & admiring her house plants. I told her that our meager collection never seemed to do very well. She said her grandmother always told her that houseplants grown from stolen cuttings always grew better than the cuttings you asked for. She got up & got a pair of scissors & a plastic bag and laid them on the table. Then she said, I'll be in the kitchen for awhile, making us some tea. We never talked about the plants again.

I dead headed flowers in planters on a city street years ago while waiting for ???? whatever. A city worker came by & told me "thank you". That was surprise! He must have appreciated the improved look AND the help :-)

I dead headed flowers in planters on a city street years ago while waiting for ???? whatever. A city worker came by & told me "thank you". That was surprise! He must have appreciated the improved look AND the help :-)

There have been a couple of times where I have been admiring and/or inspecting a plant in store & a piece will snap off. If it seemed a healthy enough piece, I'd stuff in my purse & go on about my business. Once at my local nursery, my sister in law where checking out the fruit trees. The peaches already had ripened fruit on them. Several had already fallen off & were scattered all over the ground. A worker told us we could have whatever was on the ground, since "it was no longer attached to the tree, so how can we sell it?" I've never taken any seed or clipping or whole plant from anyone without their permission. Except for what's on my parents' property. They don't take care of the plants, even though they will buy more. I also do it out of spite for killing some of my plants while I was away & left SPECIFIC intrucstions. I live out in the sticks. Plus my house is not by the road. If anyone wanted to steal something from my yard, they'd have to come right up to the house. Nothing I have outside can be propagated from cuttings. Everything would have to be dug up. I'm also home 99% of the time. In my book, digging around someone's yard without permission is vandalism. Besides, you have to be genuinely stupid to go sneaking around someone's yard, especially where I live.

While this won't be a popular opinion, I'll state it anyway:
The argument of big box stores "throwing away good plants" is always quite nonsensical to me. They've bought the plants at wholesale prices to sell at retail prices and quite honestly, they're the stores plants to do with as they please be that sell them, throw them away, or stomp them to pieces in the parking lot if they choose. The idea that a person should be able to have them for free "just because" doesn't make sense from a profit/loss point of view.
There is also the issue of snipping/pinching off parts of plants in garden centers. As noted by other posters in this string, why would that be ok when you'd be angry if some passerby just decided to come into your yard (and the garden center IS the store's "yard") and pinch off pieces of your plants to take home and start their own? Oh noooooooo, that's a completely different situation say you... NOT!
It's one thing to ask first but the employee that you ask doesn't own the stock you're pinching so in effect, they don't care one way or the other if you're doing something against management's rules or even something unethical.

Being frugal is a good trait but stealing is stealing regardless of the reason that you assign to it in your own mind.

A person who might run you off for trespassing also might happily welcome you if you ask. It is super important were folks may already be working, especially with heavy equipment. No sense at all creating a safety risk for yourself or complicating the operators job. Good community relationships are likely to have the best yields in the long run!.

If someone stopped to admire and ask permission, I would give generously. If someone cut pieces from my plants at my home without asking, I'd press charges.

One of the reasons that everything, not just plants, is so expensive is theft. From hands on stealing to identity theft, many people take what is not theirs and make stuff more expensive for all of us.

Just ask.

Do any of you give back? I have dug up plants from abandoned houses, broken off seed heads. I don't take anything from stores. Now I take care of public park beds and many of the seeds/plants I collected from around town. They're just propogated and shared. The city likes my work and it saves them money. They water it and give me mulch so I'm happy. I encourage kids to collect seeds from the flowers that bloom in the park. They need to learn basic parts of plants and be introduced to nature outside of a computer picture.

any hints and tips on cold calling? I have seen a most beautiful hydrangea in the next town, in a private garden. Do i just stroll up the path and knock on the door? I think i would be less shy if it was a beautiful garden, but the rest of the place looks like they are not big horticulturalists. What if they they think im casing the joint?!

'I encourage kids to collect seeds from the flowers that bloom in the park. They need to learn basic parts of plants and be introduced to nature outside of a computer picture.'.

What you're teaching your children is how to steal.

You can rationalize it as long as you get away with it, but if I found someone in a public park 'teaching' her children in this way, I'd call the cops.

If you want your children to learn the parts of plants, grow some plants from seeds that you obtain lawfully, & if you want to 'introduce' them to nature, teach them to respect it, not to vandalize it.

Great idea - call the cops. They have nothing better to do than arrest children for doing something the plant is already trying to do, which is to spread its seeds. That kind of self-righteousness does more harm than good.

Great idea - call the cops. They have nothing better to do than arrest children for doing something the plant is already trying to do, which is to spread its seeds. That kind of self-righteousness does more harm than good.

doubt that they'd arrest the children, but park police are there to protect the park from damage, vandallism, theft...

I don't think collected SEEDS in a public park or even a store's parking lot is stealing. They are ugly and any nursery/landscaper worth its salt would deadhead. Taking cuttings is another issue, though. Taking those things from a private home is creepy.

BUTTT, I have taken cuttings and seeds from property way out in the country where the houses burned down YEARSSSS ago and no other homes were nearby. Those turned out great. Good thing I did that, too - a logging company came to one of those areas and tore everything down, even the VERY old apple tree...lots of nice shrubs gone in half an hour.

I thought about offering to cut back the shrubs of those homes for sale that looked so unkempt. (and keep the cuttings, of course). But, I think I would've had to cut even the ugly shrubs, so didn't ask. I should've just asked.

I have given away many plants. I often try to root many more cuttings than I need in case something happens to some. SO, the extras I give away. From now on, though, I will keep them to trade.

I had a trading system going on with my family members for a while and we were all very happy with the results.

I collect a lot on walks. I draw the line at taking anything from a store since that's their business. I also don't walk onto private property to collect anything...just un-cool. There's plenty of plants over growing onto sidewalks for collecting clippings. That's fair game in my book because owners are suppose to trim those back. I take one clipping and propagate that and from there I have all I want.

I collect on public land too, which you aren't always suppose to do. But I think taking a pine seed or two isn't such a big crime. Digging up whole trees I'd get a permit first.

If you know that something "natural" (not prepared and distributed for sale) is going to wind up in a landfill, pit, dump, or incinerator...and especially if it would cost someone to haul it away...and as long as you're not trespassing on private property...I think it's safe to take it. When neighbors put bags of raked leaves at the curb, I take them. When neighbors discard their Christmas trees at the curb, I take them. If there are fallen acorns on a parking lot, and if I know that the property owner isn't ever going to reuse them as "natural mulch", I take them.

I wouldn't dare dig up a seedling in a nature preserve. If everyone did that, our nature preserves would be ruined. I wouldn't dare take anything from the stock of a commercial enterprise. If everyone did that, the store would go out of business. I wouldn't dare touch anything on private property. If everyone did that, I'd have thieves crawling on my property.

Ask permission or take only what will wind up as trash.

I used to go to construction sites and look to see what was going to bet killed for progress. They would usually let me take whatever iwanted that was going to be plowed. My husband has even brought home plants in pots cuz the nursery delivered the wrong thing

'I wouldn't dare dig up a seedling in a nature preserve. '

I once talked to a guy who had dug up some pine seedlings in a national park.

Which is a federal offense.

The park rangers (can't remember if rangers or maybe marshalls?) agreed to let him re-plant the seedlings rather than go to jail.

I have a corner house next to a nice walking trail with a stream going through it, ducks, turtles, rose gardens, all that jazz. (Farmers Branch, TX)

I also happen to have some nice Nopales on the corner of the property. The amount of times I've seen people walk up and break off a pad is disgusting, no wonder these plants never get bigger than a bush in neighborhoods. People won't stop breaking the new pads off to take home.

"It's only one"

Yea, it's only one if it's JUST YOU. When it's you and the next 20 guys, welp there goes all my new growth on that plant for the year.

On another note, I work construction and sometimes get great amounts of free plants. I now have full rows of needle palms (Easily 10 gallon plants), 24 plants total, because someone didn't want them at his house anymore. Said to throw them away.

.....

At $80 each, like -hell- I'll throw them away. 5 hours of digging and moving later and I have a much nicer yard getting the morning sun.

sodapop: Have you considered posting a sign by your nopales warning that cameras can see them and you're not afraid to prosecute?

oooh, how about a scarecrow (motion activated water jet) strategically placed? That would be fun to watch!

It's a funny idea, but they're on a corner of my lot at least 15m from the house proper. I doubt anyone would notice or care.

Also, if you have to put up big, ugly signs just to keep people away from your pretty plants, kind of defeats the aesthetic purpose in my opinion.

Not that I'm some huge nopale fan, but my current house only has 2 centerpiece plants- that nopale and an absolutely stunning Mesquite tree. (It's breathtaking. Easily in the top 1% size-wise in Dallas.)

Here's an example of why you *always* ask:

The other day I saw a big blue plastic barrel sitting haphazardly in the top of a big roll-away trash can.

I went in to the business that looked like it was the owner of the trash can & asked if they were throwing the blue can away.

"Well, actually, no", said the young person at the front desk, almost apologetically (young persons are so precious!).

"It's our secondary trash can, & the trash guys always put it like that so it doesn't blow down the street."

I hate people who would not give away plants and let them die. In past, have asked my neighbour if they will be saving tropicals (brugmansia and banana plants) over the winter(zone 6) if not, i would take them and store in my basement grow space.

They decided not to give it away but let them freeze and die.