After embarking on the journey of gardening for over two years, I have become quite a fervent gardener. Until late summer this year I was just filled with complacency doing my gardening chores including some most scrupulous routines. Plants grew big and healthy. This state of mind soon changed into an ordeal. It's been a coon's age since the last time our bay leaf bush was stolen. First, my Madagascar palm disappeared after a rainy night. Two weeks later my Japanese larch followed suit. So the number of the more convincing specimens among my plant collection is dwindling.
Dear fellow hobby gardeners, if you want my words of advice: those thieves are the biggest adversaries to keep in mind. But what can we do about this? All our current measures to dissuade theft appear to be dubious. Knowing that I cannot do anything against it only yields in an exasperation. My apprehension of a likely recurring theft is suffocating me, so much so that I'm beginning to quit my hobby.
Now looking at the barren garden, you can describe me as a forlorn gardener, bereft of his plants. I cannot help but to imagine what kind of person might have wanted to rip me off my treasures. Was it a plot or was it a whim? Are they casual thieves or professionals? Bragging kids, jaunty frats, old jealous retirees, stressed up office workers, drunken party-goers? I sometimes picture or even sense their solemn faces walking away victoriously with my plants. I became suspicious of all passersby, in fact, everyone living in the neighbourhood. I've become coy and picked up the nature of always thinking twice before greeting or returning a greeting to my neighbours. And even by doing so I'm almost convincingly sounding curt. I would even go that far as to fantasize about acquaintances or even close friends who in some way be implicated in the crime.
People who abduct plants are from the most asinine group of the society. They lack the ability to see their deed as an atrocity towards the carers of the plants. In forums I often heard say about people with green fingers who also happen to have sticky ones. I do not believe that the thieves can actually make any good use of the stolen plants. For me, loving plants is positive; stealing is negative. They don't fit together. Judging from this, I think my poor plants are likely going to end badly. In the worst case they may store up the plants in a shady corner of their den and deprive them of water.
Darn plant thieves. Darn morons. Some people would call them loonies, but the label "sordid criminals" would more aptly fit them. Loonies don't do this job quite so neatly without anybody noticing their perfect stealth. They have succeeded in setting me in belligerent mode. I daydream whole day scripting figments of a fight with a thief caught with one of my potted plants in his hands. In reality I think my face would most probably go pallid. There was once an old man with fading head ransacking on our back balcony like he'd done it so many times before. He probably came to visit habitually during office hours when our house was usually devoid of any living soul. Since I had just moved in not long ago, he couldn't have expected me. It sent shivers down my spines as I saw him. He turned around and tried to intimidate me by ordering me to
open the door. I refused to open the door but went to pick up my phone trying to get help instead. He left so swiftly despite his old age. I'd liked to go around the neighbourhood spying into each window hoping to spot a familiar sight and if I should be so lucky to find my plants, I imagine I would go up and ring the bell, go in and say "hello, I'm here to pick up my plants" and read the bewildered faces of the door openers. What a frivolous act, that I'd actually consider doing. Or would it be wiser to call the police to join my act in retrieving my poor plants, even if most people dislike them? Police don't care about the meticulous things such as this? The delegates of our society ignore the need for a change. How can we engage in a more responsible society to fight and exterminate plant thefts? Endless questions surface and remain unanswered.
Dear fellow hobby gardeners, if you want my words of advice: those thieves are the biggest adversaries to keep in mind. But what can we do about this? All our current measures to dissuade theft appear to be dubious. Knowing that I cannot do anything against it only yields in an exasperation. My apprehension of a likely recurring theft is suffocating me, so much so that I'm beginning to quit my hobby.
Now looking at the barren garden, you can describe me as a forlorn gardener, bereft of his plants. I cannot help but to imagine what kind of person might have wanted to rip me off my treasures. Was it a plot or was it a whim? Are they casual thieves or professionals? Bragging kids, jaunty frats, old jealous retirees, stressed up office workers, drunken party-goers? I sometimes picture or even sense their solemn faces walking away victoriously with my plants. I became suspicious of all passersby, in fact, everyone living in the neighbourhood. I've become coy and picked up the nature of always thinking twice before greeting or returning a greeting to my neighbours. And even by doing so I'm almost convincingly sounding curt. I would even go that far as to fantasize about acquaintances or even close friends who in some way be implicated in the crime.
People who abduct plants are from the most asinine group of the society. They lack the ability to see their deed as an atrocity towards the carers of the plants. In forums I often heard say about people with green fingers who also happen to have sticky ones. I do not believe that the thieves can actually make any good use of the stolen plants. For me, loving plants is positive; stealing is negative. They don't fit together. Judging from this, I think my poor plants are likely going to end badly. In the worst case they may store up the plants in a shady corner of their den and deprive them of water.
Darn plant thieves. Darn morons. Some people would call them loonies, but the label "sordid criminals" would more aptly fit them. Loonies don't do this job quite so neatly without anybody noticing their perfect stealth. They have succeeded in setting me in belligerent mode. I daydream whole day scripting figments of a fight with a thief caught with one of my potted plants in his hands. In reality I think my face would most probably go pallid. There was once an old man with fading head ransacking on our back balcony like he'd done it so many times before. He probably came to visit habitually during office hours when our house was usually devoid of any living soul. Since I had just moved in not long ago, he couldn't have expected me. It sent shivers down my spines as I saw him. He turned around and tried to intimidate me by ordering me to
open the door. I refused to open the door but went to pick up my phone trying to get help instead. He left so swiftly despite his old age. I'd liked to go around the neighbourhood spying into each window hoping to spot a familiar sight and if I should be so lucky to find my plants, I imagine I would go up and ring the bell, go in and say "hello, I'm here to pick up my plants" and read the bewildered faces of the door openers. What a frivolous act, that I'd actually consider doing. Or would it be wiser to call the police to join my act in retrieving my poor plants, even if most people dislike them? Police don't care about the meticulous things such as this? The delegates of our society ignore the need for a change. How can we engage in a more responsible society to fight and exterminate plant thefts? Endless questions surface and remain unanswered.