Wanted: Plant photographers, not plant thieves
By MARSHA LAUX, Master Gardener intern | May 24, 2012
Stealing is stealing. When you help yourself to something that isn’t yours, it is in fact theft. Why is it that taking a live plant (or part of it) is any less a theft than the theft of a neighbor’s bicycle, a stranger’s car, a fish when trespassing, or morel mushrooms from a private wooded acreage?
According to Webster’s definition, theft is the act of stealing, specifically: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. Also, when you take plants from a garden (or a node), whether public or private, you are not only stealing, but you are vandalizing. Vandalism, according to Webster is “willful or malicious destruction or defacement of public or private property.” Those are crimes, and as such are punishable in a court of law.
Within the last few weeks, someone stole some hardy geraniums, dug them up, roots and all from a downtown public garden area! Whether public or private, the plants stolen did not belong to the thief. Yet, there are gaping holes in the ground where someone just couldn’t resist.
A gardener carefully chooses the plants, creates a design based upon the colors, textures, heights, dates of blooms and on various stages of plant cycles. Like an artist with a palette, the gardener paints the earth. The medium is natural, rooted in the earth, dependent upon sun, rain and soil compatibility. The art form is even more challenging than the sculpture’s clay or the painter’s watercolor on canvas, as it constantly evolves over time and needs continual tending. It is a masterpiece that is created with foresight, care and hard work. The garden designer must understand the soil types, the scale and the proportion of the plants in relation to the hardscapes, the buildings and the open spaces where they are planted. Plants are grouped and visual interest is achieved by using an array of various colors of blooms or leaves, and attention to the minute details such as texture and the characteristics of the plant materials.
The manner in which we choose to show our appreciation for the beauty in nature is important. Instead of just plucking out the blooms, consider that taking away those few bursts of yellow or red will change the overall effect of the masterpiece. That plant often will not have another bloom. It cannot be replanted until the following year and have the same impact. The growth cycle has been disrupted, and the symphony of the garden has been irreparably altered.
As a new Master Gardener intern, I have a new appreciation for the work and planning that it takes to keep public places looking nice. The ambiance of our cityscape and our landscapes are greatly enhanced by the use of shrubs, trees and flowers. It is those living plants that connect us to the earth; that we all walk past and truly enjoy, (and that a few just can’t resist taking for themselves).
If you are going to take, I’d like to suggest taking a photo instead of the bloom or the plant. As an amateur photographer, I’ve found that photographing nature is very rewarding. A photo lasts longer and is something you won’t have to water or weed, and it won’t die on you. Taking photographs is easier, especially with cameras in many cell phones. Take a photo (it’s free) and submit it to a contest, frame it, share it with a friend, but find a way to capture the beauty that doesn’t take away from the beauty. Leave the artist’s plants the way you found them; carefully chosen and artfully placed in the living masterpiece that it is.
Marsha Laux is a Master Gardener intern.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Questions are welcome and can be directed to Master Gardener Intern and Ledger photographer Julie Johnston at photo@ffledger.com.
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