Did it.

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

Use the force Luke.

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.

Les, watch out for vigilantes looking for guys wandering around with serrated knives wielding a threatening cast on a leg at night in other people property. One guy just shot a fellow who was chewing something, had to stand his ground against chewing gum so it 'seemed' to him.
I give free greenies and green&white hostas away, saw a group of teenagers walk around my neighborhood with real guns, am scared that they 'seem' to think certain things about me, only drive now.
Bernd

I wouldn't do it,but yesterday,I was at an Olive Garden restaurant over at Asheville,and they had two of the most magnificent Gold Standards planted beside the restaurant! Yeah,I know,I already have 15 of them,but this one,in particular was at least 4 ft. wide and taller than any of mine,(and I have some pretty big ones),and it was sending up bloom scapes already also. I know they were Gold Standards,because one of them was partially reverting back to Hyacinthina. It was in east sun,so that was the ideal location for them! Such a shame to be by a restaurant! I wish I had brought my camera! Phil

Hooray!!! The camera is our sword,the enemy of the "Dark One". I'll have to make sure to carry my camera around with me (along with my cell phone in case I fall over a garden hose or curb taking pics.) Perhaps it will make my resisting the trip (pun intended!)to the Dark Side" easier.

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

Les, you have to make it more enticing.

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

Nope.

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.

Ooooops-I am afraid my halo is beginning to slip off of my pate. What would you do, Steve?

Or have you done this already? Fess up!

Les

I'd be there with a knife in a second. But I think Alexa would beat me to it.

Steve

Never mind a knife, get a BIG shovel and take you husband along for a lookout. Save it from the bulldozer. You have a moral obligation to preserve such beauty from neglect.
Jan

Yes, if it is that gorgeous thing, I would do it in a New York minute!

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

Somehow I think we'd be bumping into each other trying to save such a beautiful plant.

How about making it an organized Block Party, SAVE THE HOSTA, not really a vigilante group, but a rescue group. Get the proper documents to be certified tax exempt etc etc.

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.

So far no plant thieves around here. But our newspaper is missing about once every two weeks.

chris

Years ago, my mother and I found a chifferobe in an abandoned farm house; she wanted it. So she began making phone calls, and more calls, and more calls until she found someone who acknowledged that the house would be razed and if she could get the chifferobe out, she could have it. It's now in our home.

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!

That's newspaper voles, Chris. Trap 'em with "Big Snap E"

Steve

The "Dark Angel" thinks on a grand scale but works with baby steps. I fight with the temptations to take just one teeny-weeny part of a crown of a hosta, knowing my goal is to have the "BIG ENCHILADA". If I sneak one little piece I fear I will have crossed over to the Dark Side soon and need to sneak the enchilada. lol

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

If anyone actually KNOWS where there is a fabulous hosta in such a precarious situation I hope they will post the contact info here. We could organize our own version of "The Amazing Race" -- could be the next big reality show.
Jan

You know, they claim that in the times of Knights and Kings, a good engineer could sit down on paper and determine exactly how long it would take to penetrate the Castle walls...

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 have walked away with daylily seed pods full of black shiny seeds to plant and see what i get. A few sedums have made there way to my pocket from restaurant parking lots., they root too easy to walk past, but hostas are rooted just too deep and strong, I have never managed a single eye, but I will admit I thought the same thing when I saw the burger king pic.

where is the Burger King pic? I guess I missed it?

I hope this works leafwatcher

LES

Sounds to me like THE ANIMAL HOUSE generation is talking here. The ones who stabled the horse in the President's office and then it dropped dead from fright.

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.

Steve, using Gunther's Prize as your example is not fair!

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

Gesila took the picture and posted a NOID request about a week ago, looking for an ID on the BK hosta. If I knew where it was the 'Dark Side' might get me. I have been thinking about going into training: how to quickly lift just one eye from a grown hosta while diddle-daddling at the drive up window.

Les

A bunch of Hosta Hooligans!

@ Moccasin, I have managed to grow many daylilys from pilfered seed pods and make from my own plants. It's all for fun but it is a long wait, 3-5 years usually for the first bloom.

HA, Steve! I might use that on the newspaper thief, but I would never use it on an animal.

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

I found three hostas growing on the side of a landfill area once.....did I risk life and limb climbing up the side of the mound to get them? Bet your booties I did! Divided them up and got enough for a 50' row to plant between a new bed and the edge of the road, next to a fence. Turned out to be Honeybells but it makes a beautiful background!

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!