Gardeners ‘furious’ as plants stolen from homes by petty thieves

Home owners have been left “furious” and desperate for action after a spate of plant thefts across Brisbane have left gaping holes their once beautiful outdoor areas.

Residents and landscapers have shared their anguish after discovering their beloved gardens, front yards and even some public spaces, have been destroyed by opportunistic criminals. They’re believed to be striking in the night and ripping up plants to sell to wholesalers and at local markets.

Grange resident Moira Harris told Starts at 60 she was left “furious” when she returned home from work to discover a tree she planted last year had been ripped out and stolen from her front yard. 

“Initially I thought it had blown over but there was no evidence to support that theory,” she explained. Now, she’s wary of planting anything else amid worries it could happen again.

“I’m not funding any plant purchase I make for someone else to steal. I feel I’d need to plant a very established tree making it near impossible to remove even under the cloak of night and it’s on my property… how dare they,” she added.

Moira admitted it makes her worried about the types of people who get away with such petty crimes, and called for a return to the “manners” and “respect” for other people’s property. 

“As I remain in the workforce in customer service I am astounded at the way in which people speak to strangers if something does not go their way or what they don’t want to hear,” she explained. “What has happened to good manners, respect, being kind to one another… these values seem to have disappeared in our society.

“I see this lack of respect on a daily basis in my work. As my darling mother always said, ‘treat others the way in which you would like to be treated’. Try it, it’s not hard to be a nice human being!”

She now hopes the plant thieves will face punishment, and branded them “cowards” for stealing other people’s property, adding: “How would they feel if I did the same thing to them?”

Moira isn’t alone, and ABC Radio Brisbane recently shared a photo of a patch of land at a home in Coorparoo, with gaping holes left where plants had been pulled out. It sparked a huge response from listeners who had experienced the same thing themselves.

One commented: “A couple of months back someone stole my Bougainvillea plant from my front garden. It was in a big heavy pot and luckily they left this pot behind. So annoying. This was in Calamvale.”

While another added: “Had a couple of planter boxes in front of our picket fence, was tidying them up and getting them all spruced up for a friends anniversary of passing to cancer, planted pretty red poinsettias in his memory a couple of days later stolen was devastated, if they were that desperate I would have kindly given them the plants, now have planted spiky bromeliads they have not touched those. We live in Victoria Point.”

Meanwhile, another actually witnessed the criminals at work, and wrote: “Last year I saw a mum with a pram standing next to a garden in front of a business about 9:00 on a Friday night. Her partner then appeared out of the garden with a handful of plants and was filling up the pram with them!”

Shockingly, many landscapers and workers in public parks are often expected to cover the cost of replacing stolen plants.

Landscape Queensland president Dave Taylor told the ABC he had actually caught some of the green-thumbed thieves as they were in the middle of stealing the plants. Once he even found 60 trees had been stolen from a subdivision.

“I caught an elderly couple with a brand new car and they had the boot up and were loading all the plants,” he explained. Taylor believes it’s a mix of opportunistic gardeners, people looking to re-sell the plants at markets, and unlicensed landscapers.

While police cameras could help, Taylor said his best advice is not to spend money on expensive and native plants when they’ll be accessible to thieves.

Have you, or anyone you know, had a plant or tree stolen from your property?