Theftproofing plants? (Location California Central Coast)

Last year, I had a concrete shoulder next to our fence removed, since it became an impromptu skateboard track. I had top soil laid down, and had ground cover plants installed. No problems until a new family of renters moved into the neighborhood. Since June, some of these plants have been torn out, and lately, have been torn out and disposed of in the neighbors' yards, tossed over fences, etc. I'm working on a continuum of response to this vandalism (considering installing a security camera to record the offender, since I have a good idea who is doing it; that's at the far end of this continuum.). I would like to know if there is any kind of sticky substance, non-injurious to the plants and to people, that would make this youthful miscreant very aware that he has been caught. Something that has an unpleasant odor and is hard to wash off, perhaps similar to pine sap, would be ideal. These incidents have increased in frequency, and the local police have been notified. I'd rather spend 50 bucks or so on such a substance, than several hundred dollars on a surveillance system that won't even have paid for itself after the hoodlum is identified and caught. Thanks all for your suggestions.

if you go to an agricultural store - or some of the real good nurseries they have some mole and groundhog repellents that stink when you get them on your hands.. they also have pepper sprays that you would normally coat corn with that basically is the same stuff the cops use only it sticks to the plants - a squirrel repellent- .. I would wonder if pissing off a vandal would have the proper effect. if they have the fortitude you may escalate the situation.. a hunting camera like wildview is kind of cheap and is motion sensitive - used by hunters to leave in the woods to see what walks by.. that may be a better use for the fifty bucks.. although a camera AND liqid pepper is funny.. otherwise there are motion activated water sprinklers ( again, to deter pests) but being by a road or sidewalk - although funny as all heck - might annoy an innocent passerby.

good luck - look up pest repellents. but i think you may have to be willing to be egged come mischief night on halloween if you escalate it.
-joe-

you tube it! i'd love to see what you come up with.

Thanks, Joe. What I'm dealing with is a kid under 12 of questionable lineage who has a prison cell in his future (I'm sure you know what I mean), and trailer trash family, to put it mildly; you know the type, property values start to drop the moment they infest a neighborhood. I neglected to mention that I did spray the plants with Repels-All after the last theft; it didn't do the job. The repellents and pepper spray angle sounds good; they also have dogs they let loose to do their business as well. I checked out the Wildview camera online; it looks interesting, but the location of the plants is such that I would have to mount it where it could be stolen (!). I thought of the motion-activated sprinkler; unfortunately, having a corner house, and with folks walking their dogs and getting exercise, the wrong people would get zapped.

I'm not sweating Halloween; I planned to be up all night anyway, since there are other miscreants in the neighborhood. I'm hoping for a good rain that night

actually.. I have two - mostly for the garden and to keep an eye on the chicken coop when I am away.. the two point so each other in in the pic in case someone tries to take one.(I am on a corner yard as well)

sounds like life in the 'burbs.. ain't it grand.. we are pretty lucky as the kids around my house are pretty good.

I suspect that they - being genetically challenged as it sounds - will get bored as son as some other shiny thing rolls their way. If you entertain them they'll stay. sounds like they have less to lose.

(get a b-b gun and save the gene pool!)

just kidding....
kinda
-joe-

I found some stuff called "Critter Ridder", which has the ingredients found in pepper spray. However, as you probably know, it's raining pretty good in CA right now, so this will have to wait until the rain stops.I bought this stuff to stop dogs from using my yard (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it). BTW, this morning I found the plant the little dork tore out last night, underneath a neighbor's shrubs. I'm sure, in his twisted little future prison inmate brain that all's square between us-like hell. If this doesn't work, the cameras are next.

(I like the idea of a bb gun, I'd prefer a claymore mine in the garden, but the noise would disturb the neighbors, and break windows).

I'll keep you apprised.

Oh, before I forget; those cameras. How weather-resistant are they? I have an idea for mounting one of them that involves a 2 x 4 planted in the ground, a joint I can move, and the camera attached to another part of a 2 x 4, in a location that makes theft difficult. I'm fortunate to have a neighbor who has a pretty good woodshop in his garage, so he can help me figure out how to put such a Rube Goldberg device together. If I go the camera route, I'll take a picture of the setup.



This message was edited Oct 13, 2009 12:45 PM

How about some rose bushes, the ones with really big thorns. Or put in some Nettle plants. The little jerk will itch for weeks.

I got some rose cuttings that fit that bill if your interested!

Knock Out roses have viscous wicked thorns, are low maintainance and pretty. Underplant them with miniature roses.....and dust the entire bed with cayenne pepper.....grin

or i know where I can get a ton of habaneros

The wildlife cameras are built to be mounted outside and are usually sealed in a hard, protective case. I think there are ones that are built to be hard to steal.

I had the same problem at the last place I lived. The kids from the ghetto down the hill would play in our common area and one day I saw them actually beating on the trees and bushes with a pipe. I was sorely tempted to plant nettles and poison oak and something thorny out there.

This message was edited Oct 14, 2009 7:35 AM

The first thing I thought of when reading this was cacti. Little...would stay away from those. Barberry, roses, crown of thorns, yucca, holly, pyracantha...broken glass for mulch...

I have a ton of Yucca seeds and a blow dart gun you can borrow...LOL

I love the responses here! Thanks for the tips about the roses, pastime, trinawitch and moonhowl. My smarter, better half loves roses; she might get behind the idea if necessary. Hopefully, the future "America's Most Wanted" featured dirtbag will find that plants that don't belong to you aren't worth messing with. trinawitch - I love the blow dart gun idea; it'd be cheaper than a flamethrower (grin).

Katlian, I actually considered nettles (they grow wild out here), and I thought "Too bad about poison oak being illegal to plant in a yard"; a warning sign, and let's see if the little dummy believes it (or is too stupid to read). The stuff grows all over the place nearby; a cutting or two...dozen... And those idiots from the ghetto beating on the trees and bushes? That kind of thinking will keep them in the ghetto.

But, I digress. kwanjin, I thought about cacti, too. The other plants I will keep in mind, thanks; "broken glass for mulch"...I love it.

The rain stopped this morning, and I applied some of the Critter Ridder; let's see what happens.

Thanks, all. I'll post the results of this experimentation.

just let me know the blow dart gun is still an option and I have a wide selection of air soft guns (5 teenagers of my own) Paintball guns work too!

Paintballs sting something awful!!! LOL

yes they do nailed my own son in the forehead with one (don't ask) and it left a massive red welt for days!

Is Russian Olive illegal in CA? They're making it illegal here in CO, which is a crying shame as it's a beautiful tree that smells SOOOO wonderful in the spring & summer.. and has WICKED thorns (knives?) that range from 2-8" long. You do NOT want to accidentally put your hand into one of those. Plus they're tough as nails and withstand almost anything, including fire! It's a "nuisance weed" here because it "requires too much water" BAH! I've seen them live in a full-on desert with less than 2" of rainfall! Morons.

Barrel Cactus, any of the yucca family, prickley pear cactus, stinging nettle, blue girl holly, barberry... any of these I wouldn't want to stick my bare hand into. Also, I was thinking, various kinds of low-growing junipers or mulgo pines would work as well. There's a type of juniper that's very low growing, is an attractive blue color, as tiny little blue cones on it, and is spikey as all hell. I don't know the real name for it, but I call it Alligator Juniper. Don't do Old Gold Juniper as that's too "soft". A small hawthorn would work as well as most of them have evil spines, plus have attractive berries in the fall that the birds love!

Rabid pitbull would work, too. But I wouldn't want to poison the poor pitbull.

Bear trap?

Now is this on your own private property or is this on common property? HOA? I re-read the original post & cannot figure out if this is on your private property or if this is like on the hell-strip between the sidewalk & the road. I know that you can get one of those misting things that sprays when someone walks by, but rather with some pleasing scent from Glade, put in skunk scent.

Just my $0.02

This message was edited Oct 15, 2009 10:57 AM

Monkey puzzle tree.

Monkey Puzzle Tree?

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1452/

very intersting....too bad it won't grow here!

Some places say it will take temps to -5º F.

skiekitty, this is my own property. The previous homeowner couldn't be arsed to have anything growing, and the concrete was a mild nuisance until this last year, then it became THE place to hang out to skateboard. I got tired of being a Paul Blart and asking kids to stay off it with their skateboards (last year, I came outside and saw 15 kids all skateboarding). I had the stuff torn out, and ground cover put in this past spring. Again, vandalism of this didn't start occurring until this brat and his trailer trash family moved in. If he wants male attention from me, I'd be glad to introduce him to what a spanking feels like, but he's not worth going to jail. I got a small whiff of the pepper spray animal repellent this morning, having reapplied it to an area; made my eyes sting. Here's hoping this is the last step.

Too bad I can't put in a bear trap; I'm more concerned about hurting somebody's kitty, though.

I know Airsoft makes a version of a claymore mine; that would be funny, but very messy.


This message was edited Oct 15, 2009 1:01 PM

LOL

i love this thread...

wait sometimes at Dollar Tree you can find those champaigne poppers, I used those once, used some quilting thread to extend the lengths, attatched one end to the fence and one end to the plant and kinda hid them a bit...neighbors kid yanked on the plant and tat thing exploded, he never touched them again

Maybe you can get a dye bag from the bank

Sal, if you get them on tape or film. then you have what you need to approach parents. Doesn't California have a "responsible parent" law? Of course, they may be the problem....

I don't know if bunny tail cactus will grow in your area but that's a nasty one because the spines are like getting a handful of fiberglass. My Anchusa azurea is pretty prickly too, I always wear gloves when working with it.

I wish there were more "responsible parent" laws. Have you ever read Starship Troopers? Not that I'm in favor of flogging people, but I think public punishment of both child AND parent would certainly force the parents to pay attention to their offspring.

Good luck with your little miscreants.

Read Starship Trooper, today at this point, the wallet is the better whip...or a couple nights in central lockup for the parents and child.

Preferred Citizen of the Galaxy....grin

the sad thing about it is anything you do to protect your property or plants, if it's done with an intent to do harm could get you sued if the kid gets hurt. About the only thing I can think of is to catch them on video, turn them in for vandalism and maybe sue the parents for damages.

see this works as a great deterent to would be plant thieves very well. peg them through the hand just once and they'll go out of there way to avoid your house

It looks like you'd have to have a pretty big set of lungs to use that thing trinawitch.

I have been afraid since moving to Dallas that someone might start stealing my plants. So far nothing has happened but we have new neighbors which only scares me more. Our porch is interconnected and anyone can access it. If someone starts stealing or vandalizing my plants I won't know who it is.

At least you have an idea of who it is. You could try ebay to see if you can find a cheap camera... I've seen some pretty nice stuff at a cheap price.

I can only imagine at this point that you've spent hundreds on plants. I'm still in the process of growing my numbers up in my garden but if you manage to stop the vandal I'd be more than happy to donate an Aloe Vera for your garden.

I had a beautiful 4 ft tall ceramic urn my husband gave me for my birthday one year. It took a long time to figure out where to put it and how to plant it. A couple weeks after I finally figured it out and was so pleased with the outcome, someone else decided they liked and needed it more than I did. It was to the side of our front door, so I thought it was safe....silly me.
My husband replaced the urn and plants, with a slight revision...instead of using styrofoam pellets to fill the bottom of the planter, he used gravel, about 40 lbs of gravel....my 30+ pound planter that was awkward to move, became a very heavy unwieldy back breaker.....when our thief returned to make a matched set for himself, I happened to be awake, (very late night) and the sheriff's deputy caught him trying to steal the plant dolly from the garage...grin

I now have a matched set flanking the front walkway....and they both have gravel in them, but this time they also have to be lifted 2 ft off the ground to clear the rebar my husband drove 2 feet into the ground and set the pot over...grin

Where there is a will....you will find a way to have what you want and keep it.

That is very true Moon :)

If only I could do such things in an apartment complex. I'd be set :D

Maybe I just need to plant thorny things eh?

Lots of Knockout roses Leysha, pyracanthas and barberry...grin

LOL Moon

:D Mayhaps.

I've always wanted to grow roses from seed. I'd probably end up giving them away anyway because I don't have a lot of space.
It's a good idea though.

That was just thoughts on thorns....grin. The real solution is for parents to teach their children it is wrong to steal....Yeah, I know.....how naive...grin

How can I tell if I'm in zone 8a or 8b? It never specified on the zoning map.