Every time I pay my city utilities bill I have this itch to sneak back at night and steal a couple of small sections to take home and propogate. It is a DEMON that haunts me.

If I had Gesila's BK near my house, every morning when I buy my "Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Bisquit' and Sr. Harvey Wallbanger on the rocks, I would think about sneaking back and stealing a couple of small bits of that gorgeous hosta.

So if you see a retired, retarded, scragly white haired stranger with a cast from ankle to hip sneaking around your hosta gardens at night weilding a huge serrated knife and a plastic bag you will know who it is.

Have any of you entertained such thoughts, or am I the only hostaholic with this particular DEMON in my head?

Have any one ever DONE it instead of just fantacizing about it? You can fess-up. We won't tell anyone.

Les

When I was first bitten by the hosta bug we were on vacation in the Berkshires at a lovely resort. The hostas were magnificent and I was drooling over many of them. One huge display in particular was on near the walking path between our room and the main lodge, and after a couple too many glasses of wine one night, I snuck out with a plastic bag and a plastic knife. I gently pried a very small eye from the back of one of the clumps and smuggled it home. It looked great the first two years, then I discovered it was indeed a Gold Standard and year 3 it was obviously infected with HVX. I dug it and tossed it and decided that was karma and have never been tempted since.

Alexa

Think of it in reverse terms.

You recently broke down and added a $200.00 Dorothy Benedict to your collection. You had just planted it. You wake up and go out to see it. It's gone. Someone came into your yard overnight and took it. They didn't know what it was or how much it cost. They just wanted it.

or

You spend a lot of time at your job creating beautiful landscapes, designing, planting and taking care of them. You get to work to discover that someone decided to rip out a piece of what you had worked so hard to create.

While I might be on the crazy side about hosta, a hosta is not something that I am willing to get arrested for. Being charged with theft is not a part of my hosta plans.

Yes, I had thought about it but I had also thought about going to jail over something I could pay $20.00 for. Not worth it. Last year I had started a thread about hosta at an empty rental house and hosta on empty lots was also discussed. I still drive by that gorgeous hosta two blocks away and I still wish that it was in my yard.

Alexa-what a lesson!

Now Frank, you seem to have given this a lot of thought. Something has made you do that! I have a little voice inside my head that whispers "aha-he has thought about doing it too, and fought it off". lol

One of my defenses against the "Dark One" has been how I would feel if someone "raided" MY gardens. But seeing neglect sure makes it harder to fight off. Neglecting such fair maiden arrouses the return of the "Jedi", knight in shining armor, instinct in me. Virtue can be the tool of the "Dark One" too, as Luke learned.

Les

Frank,

Supposing you drive by a small house for sale with a beautiful garden. It's got a "Sold" sticker on the real estate sign on the front lawn. As you go by something catches your eye that you think is a Hosta. You double back and look closer and see this:

When you get home you call the Real Estate agent to find out who owns the property and if you can contact them. The Agent tells you that the new buyer is a person who buys properties with small houses in order to bulldoze them and build larger more "upscale" houses to sell them. He intends to raze the entire property including the plantings and have a landscape company come in and put in small shrubs and mulch. No, he's not interested in selling any of the plants that are on the property now.

Would you take your knife down there at night in this situation?

Steve

It is far less costly to buy a ton of expensive hosta than it is to post bail, hire a lawyer, end up paying a fine and serving time in your local jail while getting your name in the local newspaper.

Not even Gunther's Prize is worth that.

Or have you done this already? Fess up!

Les

Steve

Especially if it's going to be bulldozed. I think of it as saving a life. But I would try to contact the new owner first.

chris

While I've not exactly done the taking, I've had the taking done to me. We call her "the plant thief" and she was during the night going through various neighborhoods digging up palm trees, Japanese maples (mine), stepping stones (mine), jasmine (mine), and even flower pots. The only plant I got back was a jasmine. I began spray painting all the stems of every plant I bought, every flower pot bottom, florescent orange. How can you prove the ID of a plant? This young woman turned out to be bipolar and off her drugs, but she was getting plants to start a nursery business. One lady in the neighborhood was a daylily hybridizer with about a 1000 daylilies, and she lost about a hundred when she started looking at holes. The young woman, "the plant thief," was put under a court order of some kind, and even came back and stole my neighbor's homemade ceramic flower pot TWICE and nearly got called down in court over the ruckus she made about that one little pot. Yeah, it can become quite an urban legend, not naming any names here.

Les, what I recommend when the Dark Side begins to call to you, make that a double Sr Harvey Wallbanger. Or make a White Russian with a jigger of Chivas Regal in it. Sleep like a baby.

chris

I'd pursue that Gunthers Prize and maybe even the variegated holly behind it. I'd call the owners, then the company that's to tear down the building, then the supervisor of the crew . . . anyone to get that hosta!

Steve

Mocassin, I think your story of the bipolar person is so sad! I fully know about that person from an employers standpoint-and WE lost him forever. Enough said.

I also like your White Russian idea. Go to BK and ask for a CECB and a White Russian with a Chivas kicker---And THEN steal a pinch of their hosta. lol

I could then pick up Chris's newspaper to read while watching the Kankakee River flow past and eating. I have to strengthen my body and brain before the hard work of digging a hole for my baby enchilada.

Les

I was wondering what the formula would be for that big Hosta pictured above assuming night time, roping, taping, and digging it SILENTLY as the mosquitos drain the blood from your body ;)

I hope this works leafwatcher

LES

Please repost the BK picture. I must have missed it too.

My DH asked me today about daylily seedpods, and I did not know if you could get a hybrid daylily to grow true from a pod. So. We shall be attempting it, since my daylily bed is blooming like a Memorial Day cemetery.

(I guess I'll bring enough ski masks for everybody.)

Les

we live next to a big field and periodically we get mice in the house. We live trap 'em and set them loose back in the field.

chris

Would I filch one from a public place or private property? No, but maybe a piece from an abandoned property, if I couldn't find the owner. Not the whole plant, mind you, that might be too obvious, but just a teenie eye or two.....lol!