Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Happy Holidays (and don't steal plants, dammit!)

Recently I pulled up an old blog post from 2015; "Holiday cartoon déjà vu..." 

In that post I visited Marbott's, a local nursery with fabulous vintage greenhouses. The above and below photos are from that post.
Back then I'd happened to stop by the nursery when one of their greenhouses was filled with poinsettias—just like that I was magically taken back to this scene from the 1969 Rankin/Bass holiday special, Frosty the Snowman. I was so inspired that I wrote about it.
Hoping for a little holiday magic I stopped by Marbott's last week. It was late enough in the season I was pretty sure their poinsettia would all be gone, and I was right. No worries, wandering through their greenhouses is always a heart-warming experience. Except no. There were signs on a couple of the doors saying the growing greenhouses were closed. Bummer. I explored the rest of the nursery though, buying a few things and appreciating their gift suggestions...

Checking out (paying for my purchases) I mentioned that I'd hoped to wander thru the greenhouses and was sad to see them closed. Well what do you know, I was then invited to do so, score!

Of course we started talking about why the the greenhouses were closed. Dammit. Theft. People pinching pieces of the plants. It's a widespread problem, and not just here but at nurseries around town, like Tony's. Where it wasn't just "pinching" that happened...
From things I've heard, it sounds like a lot of these issues have to deal with the trendy houseplant collectors. I've always said that gardeners are good people... and included houseplant enthusiasts in that statement, but issues like this make me wonder. There was a recent article that made the rounds in Facebook groups I'm a part of; "The online plant community has a hoarding problem"
It's an interesting story. On one hand I think plants=good, on the other hand the insane mark-up that's occurring on (mainly) houseplants—and fueling the theft?—is criminal. My friend Evan wrote a nice rebuttal to that article on Instagram (here).
Referring to the story I linked to above, he writes: "The generosity of gardeners always amazes me. I received several cuttings in the mail the other day from fellow plant lovers and it made me so happy…

I debated about posting this, as it's not very glamorous or even a very good shot, but then I read an article interviewing several Instagram "plantfluencers" (ew) and there were a lot of comments about how expensive gardening is, with all the equipment and guides you have to buy (with supposed frequency), and how isolating gardening is. What? You're doing it wrong. You can grow plants in plastic cups for f*cks sake. Gardening doesn't take a lot of equipment if you select plants that will grow in your conditions, including indoors. I have tons of plants selected to grow well in the natural light of my windows, no artificial lights or indoor grow tents required. I do have lights, since I ran out of window space, but it's very easy to garden without going into debt. Stop buying "rare" plants that aren't even rare for grossly inflated prices. New plant on the market? Wait a few years and you'll find it for a fraction of the cost. Grow plants that you like and that grow well for you, not for online clout.

Lonely? Join a plant society! Or a neighborhood garden group. This is also a great way to get free or cheap plants, pots, tools, even lights and other equipment. And you'll make new friends who can teach you based on actual experience, or point you to verified information, instead of learning from fake "plantfluencers" or useless, generic puff articles online.

Start small. Learn as you grow. You will kill plants. We all have. Don't start with the expensive ones. Grow what you love, not what will give you the most likes."

So well said! That same day that I visited Marbott's and heard of their theft issues, a box of aeonium cuttings showed up on my backdoor step. A friend in San Diego mentioned on Facebook that his aeoniums were so prolific he'd started just throwing out cuttings. I said "don't throw them out, send them to me!" and so he did...

Over two dozen stems!

Are you still with me? This has been a very long and rambling post. What I'd planned to share as a throw-back to a happy holiday memory has morphed to a sad story of entitled people. Here's what I hope you take away from all this: gardeners are the best people, true plant lovers share their knowledge and their plants. Be one of those people.

I hope that you are having a wonderful holiday season.

—   —   —

All material © 2009-2021 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

21 comments:

  1. I enjoyed this thought provoking "rambling" post which took a different direction than I thought after reading the headline. I recently had a plant stolen from my yard - pulled right out of the ground - so I assumed you might write about such acts of thievery. I wonder how common it is for nurseries to suffer from theft at a scale similar to the fence cutting image above?!

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    1. I have heard of plants being pulled from the ground here too, one person I know even speculated the same company that did the install was connected to the thieves. As for the fence cutting, I hope not common at all!

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  2. "Instagram "plantfluencers" (ew)" is exactly right: good on Evan for pointing it out so clearly and eloquently.
    I hope all of us strive to be one of "those people": true plant lovers who share knowledge, plants and the love of gardening. Merry Christmas!

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  3. I couldn't agree more with what Evan wrote. But at the end of the day, "influencers" don't have patience because it's all about the here and now.

    I've never had anybody steal anything from my garden, knock on wood. But I know it's only a matter of time, people being people.

    But I don't want to dwell on grinchy thoughts this close to Christmas. On that note, Merry Christmas!

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    1. My only (knock on wood) theft was when someone walked all the way up our long driveway and snatched a hanging pot off the front of the garage. A neighbor had just unloaded a pair of espalier apples in their side yard and bam! They went missing. Grinchy indeed! (Merry Christmas)

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  4. I'm pleased you republished Evan's excellent commentary. Hopefully, thefts on the scale of that Tony's experienced are rare, although I suspect small-scale pinches are not. Given that so many nurseries/garden centers struggle just to stay afloat these days, even that's appalling. During a recent visit a friend commented on what she felt was my foolish practice of keeping planted pots close to the street (albeit behind a bed of succulents) but I've never had a theft here. Perhaps that's just good karma derived from my practice of placing plants, fruit, and sometimes flowers at the curb with a "free" sign. I hope my luck holds.

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    1. I hope your luck holds too! I think it also has to do with how many cars and people pass thru, non neighbors. Your street seems like it's a little out of the way?

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  5. Be one of those people: well said! I'm so sorry to hear about this phenomenon. But your message is hopeful. Happy holidays to you, Loree!

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  6. Like Tulipomania this will pass one day. I wonder what percentage of these collectors will morph into lifetime gardeners ? I started with houseplants too, back in my very early 20's. Tiny 4" pots of Coleus and
    Marantas and Pothos.

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    1. me too. I once did put a small mexican style planter by the road and it was gone the next day. Since people put free stuff by the road maybe they thought I didn't want it. Too bad there is garden theft. But there is theft everywhere. They can hire a security guard at night in winter maybe. or A mean old barky dog when the store is closed like factories do. Gardeners are not the kind of people who do that in my mind. Thieves are. They are giving gardeners a bad name.

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    2. ks, I hope a great deal of them do morph!

      Unknown, ya, things by the street here in my neighborhood tend to disappear too, I'm sorry this happened to you.

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  7. I try to be one of those people who share plants. People don't always want my plants, but they're given with good intentions.

    I had a neighbor who pinched off plants at the Big Box stores, and it really bothered me. I stopped shopping with her when I saw what she did.

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    1. Good for you! I just don't understand that level of entitlement!

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  8. Wow, that is absolutely shocking. Serious gardeners know how much work and how little profit is the life of a nursery owner. What an appalling thing to be robbed like that. I can be a plant snob with the best of them, but never by theft. Have a lovely holiday.

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    1. Can you imagine how horrible it would feel, showing off a plant you got because you stole it? Ugh.

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  9. Plant theft is exasperating and depressing. I experience a lot of it working in public gardens on the Long Beach Peninsula. It means the public gardens aren’t as full of plant excitement as they could be, because after awhile one has to stop planting special plants that repeatedly get stolen. City budgets are not endless when it comes to replacements, and sometimes it has felt like there is someone or more than one just waiting for new plants to go in.

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    1. I was thinking of the theft you experience as I responded to the above comments. Especially disheartening is the idea they're watching and waiting.

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  10. For a small garden for Mitch, I planted a Big Red Sun-style large disk on a concrete column and filled it with my most mature bromeliads and hanging succulents, like a lovely mature burro's tail. And you're right to make the distinction between heavy foot-trafficked streets and those like Kris' that don't see a lot of foot traffic. I guess the temptation was too much to bear...also a lot of Echeveria agavoides were nicked. The house was sold and the garden completely neglected, so in the end it mattered little!

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  11. There are always a few rogues in any group. All the plant people I know are generous to a fault (uh, no more lamium thanks). Aeoniums: what a wonderful early Christmas gift. Have a wonderful holiday.

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