Nice to see you on Garden Rant, Marie! When whole plants are stolen, the thefts are likely more larcenous than petty. No matter how much of a bargain it might seem, don't buy your plants off the back of a truck. If something looks like it was just dug out of the ground and dumped into a container, it probably was, to mask its origins. Don't support the black market of plant trafficking. When the NYC Parks Department started its Greenstreets program back in the 1980s, a friend of mine worked for them as a gardener. He told me that theft was one of their biggest problems; people stole entire plantings from the middle of the streets! These were clearly "landscapers" finding material to sell to their clients. He started embedding barbed wire into the root balls and stems of the woody plants. Like a bike lock, it would not stop the determined thief, but it would slow them down enough that they might move elsewhere. When I moved to Flatbush, neighbors told me their horror stories of plants stolen from their front yards. The most brazen was a woman who went to my next-door neighbor's yard, dug out the Japanese Maple from their front yard (yes, she brought her own shovel), and rode off with it, on her bicycle. Like Cassie above - yet another Brooklyn gardener/blogger! - I've learned not to put out any container plantings until after Mother's Day. What a thoughtful, last-minute-because-I-didn't-think-of-bringing-you-anything-until-I-saw-these-beautiful-flowers-on-some-stranger's-front-steps, gift! (P.S. to Cassie: Nice to "meet" you here!)

"I didn't think they would get that big!"