An astonishing percentage of Republicans still believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen, though that fever seems to be simmering down slowly. The truth or nothing but the truth. It’s complicated. Thou shalt not steal elections or seeds? The jury is out. I have collected (stolen?) seeds for nearly fifty years. Never copious amounts, and no targeted plant has ever been stripped clean of seeds, but I am splitting hairs.
Do we turn a blind eye toward some crimes?
I pilfered seeds of the beautiful, gender-bending hermaphroditic gingko in Louisville’s Cave Hill Cemetery in 2015. The seed’s pulp is notoriously foul smelling. Few, beyond deranged gardeners with clothespins on their noses, would collect seeds of a gingko. I left seeds for the next guy. I hope my one pokey-growing gingko tree, sourced from this heist, doesn’t get repossessed.
In 2016 farm workers were collecting feed buckets (copious amounts) of bur oak acorns, along Beargrass Creek in Louisville’s Olmsted-designed Seneca Park. The purpose: to fatten hogs. (I can’t imagine fattening hogs was the Olmsted firm’s original design intent.) Fortunately, I had done a drive-by there the day before and gathered a paper sandwich bag full. I sowed the acorns in Salvisa. Squirrels, as always, were selfish but left a few acorns that grew into three buggy whips. The little bur oaks have not yet been grazed to the ground by rabbits or deer.
Last October four Asian students were innocently collecting Chinese chestnuts at Louisville’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I was scouting. I didn’t horn in but returned the next day, and the chestnuts were gone. It was painful to imagine chestnuts roasting on someone else’s fire. As far as I know, there were no fire-and-brimstone repercussions for the students. They were young and looked so happy.
It takes a spy to know a spy
Does my seed-hustle compare with Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief—A True Story of Beauty and Obsession? I am not a poacher out to make a buck. The beauty of plants is embedded in my soul, but my plant obsession leaves me flummoxed. I never went overboard with baseball cards. Why plants?
Keep in mind: Crimes of obsession may be recorded on doorbell cameras or CCTV. Rose and I recently watched Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan spy thriller on Amazon Prime. Cameras revealed tell-tale clues of no-good Russians every five minutes.
Seedy scoundrels are all around you. I am not spilling beans, but I know the type. Do you? They could be your next-door neighbors—the ones with the beautiful pollinator garden. (Did anyone watch The Americans, about a Russian spy couple embedded in suburban northern Virginia with their two children?)
Imagine Roger Stone, renowned political trickster, wearing camo gear and night vision glasses in a garden. Stone, a clotheshorse and self-described “agent provocateur” must know how easy it is to get tripped up by an exposed beech tree root after dark.
Seed culprits prefer daytime derring-do. Fishing vests and baggy trousers with lots of pockets and zippers are de rigueur in gardening spy craft, but let’s be honest. Fishing apparel in a garden looks as odd as a fop with a top hat, leaving the courthouse after convictions on seven Federal charges.
Roger Stone’s sentence was commuted in 2020. My fate remains unknown.
I have scruples
My first choice is to ask permission. Gardeners are generous with their plant divisions, cuttings and seeds.
What if the owner’s not around?
The five-fingered discount might apply, though not for plants. I try not to trespass, but I might pinch a few seeds from the property boundary, unless there is an unchained, snarling dog in the garden.
Don’t put me in the same boat with pickpockets, grifters, car jackers or orchid thieves. Even if you think my compulsion has led me to a life of petty crime, chances are I will not end up as one of America’s Most Wanted.
Cave Hill Cemetery won’t come after me for collecting a few gingko seeds. Some of my people are buried there.
Let the punishment fit the crime
Garden banishment? Possibly.
Shame? Yes.
Is it worth the risk?
Another growing season is around the corner.
I am not quite ready to seek absolution.
There is something exuberant about pocketing a few seeds.
Roger Stone knows how I feel.
Well, no he doesn’t.
Humor really missing the mark here – and I resent having the repugnant Roger Stone, and the 2020 election insanity he helped inspire, inflicted on me in a totally inappropriate forum with this misguided attempt. I don’t offend easily but this has done it, am considering unsubscribing,
Touchy, a little bit? No smiles at all?;
We don’t live in a black-and-white world. Some sins are worse than others. Those of Roger Stone are unconscionable; collecting a few (but not all) seed is a “gentle sin”, in the words of Hozier.
Not sure why your post was so offensive to the above reader. You and Jeanne seem to be on the same page.
To clarify, I too have zero positive thoughts about Roger Stone. Allen’s “rant” is hilarious and frankly brilliant. His critic is the one “missing the mark here.”
I agree that this article is funny and entertaining, although I have to admit if I never heard the man’s (RS) name again, it would make me happy too.
Relax, Jeanne. Steve Martin once said, “Comedy isn’t pretty.” He was right. This isn’t Russia. We can joke without being sent to Siberia. As Americans, we can all be irreverent gardener friends, except perhaps if we are convicted felons like Roger Stone. Allen, dear Allen, this was a delight-exactly the jocularity we all need from time to time, and particularly now during a Texas ice storm.
Delightful! As for taking offense and subscribing because of it? Well, this blog isn’t for everyone.
Btw, I’m always looking for a spy series as good as “The Americans.” Watching Season 1 of “Tehran” now – very good but not “The Americans.” Suggestions appreciated.
Loved Tehran. Le Bureau (The Bureau) was our pandemic favorite.
Of course the blog isn’t for everyone, and apparently honest and heartfelt criticism isn’t either. If you think it’s delightful to shove a political connection (no matter how painful) into everything we just have a disagreement there – and since it’s your blog, it’s your privilege to be dismissive.
…. Maybe a little editing needed but it grabbed my attention! thanks.
Guilty as charged! I, too, carry a smidge of guilt for picking up a few seed here and there, rationalized as saving a handful of native Oregon White Oaks from the local squirrels, or keeping the genetic line going on a venerable Dove Tree in a world-renowned arboretum that shall remain unnamed. I know how you feel.
Poaching from “a venerable dove tree…” Ah, temptation, Nancy. I bet you only nicked a few seeds.
my dear Nancy. I am sure you remember our fabulous trip to China in 1999 where 60 of us marauded our way through some amazing landscapes and plant material. I have to confess that I pirated some canna seeds and I would suspect that several other members did similar acts of terrorism. Thank God we all made it through customs without getting thrown in the clinker.
I enjoyed your post. Looking forward to seeking seeds…
Keep your eyes pealed, Sue.
Wish I could have gotten the acorns that I picked up in the Berkshires a few years ago to sprout. Not a sign of life even though I protected their resting spot from those crazy squirrels.
I’ve covered an area with hardware cloth and little devils still got the acorns,
I’ve been on a few rose rustles, saved some sweet heritage roses to bloom another day while the originals are long disappeared.
Good rose rustling!
A word of caution: If your plant is on the state rare list, and here in NC there are over 400 species to be careful about, you are legally liable if you collect seeds. Getting permission from the land owner is great, but he
is supposed to have a completed form to send to the PCP office in Raleigh. When I share any part of a plant on that list, I am legally required to submit such a form. An inconvenience, yes, but much improved from many years ago. The reasoning behind this is collecting data as to where the plants originate and where they go later.
Excellent advice, Lynda.
Let’s leave “politics” out of the blog. We get enough of that elsewhere. Thank you
Gotta admit, I too hate running into politics in places that I look to as as respite from all of that nonsense.
Hi Allen. You crook. Stealing seeds. Punishable by tiny burrs in your fingers! Your article reminded me of my early years working in a greenhouse. One fall day I invited a girlfriend to see where I worked while in school. After an hour poking around the inside greenhouse we returned to the car and she opened her jacket pocket to show me what she had collected. About a dozen cuttings from various house plants. I was mortified. I worked there and was well respected. Thank goodness the landscape police cameras were not on that day-or not invented or needed yet. “My mother taught me this.” When I related this story to my life partner years later, he told me his grandmother used to do the same thing. Gardens and homes get filled with plants one way or another. Signs of spring are coming.
What a great story, Eugene. Thank you,
My first thought – I’m thrilled that those four Asian students, most often from rather wealthy urban families, retained enough of their rural heritage to even recognize, much less value, those chestnuts they discovered. That gives me great hope for a country now mostly concentrated in high rise apartments in cities called small if they boast a population of a mere five million or so. The annual Chinese New Year re-connection with their roots, often described as the world’s largest mass migration, would seem to be keeping alive an important bond with the land and things natural.
My second thought – my life of seed-related crime began with a much less questionable offense. At the age of 5, I just plain stole a packet of balsam seed from the rack on the sidewalk in front of Shand’s Grocery. Busted immediately upon arriving back home, I was perp walked back to Shand’s to return it, not to the rack, but directly to Mr. Shand. From that day forward, no seed I ever stole was in an unopened, inarguably incriminating packet.
Joe, you learned a valuable lesson with your balsam episode. On the flip side, I’m going back for those seminary chestnuts next year. Your soup recipe inspires me..
I have never had anyone protest that I am dead heading things like marigolds, zinnias and such. In fact I have had homeowners act very surprised when told they can grow a new plant from the shriveled up blooms (seed heads); most of these people think that flowers come from stores. whenever I pick someone up at my local airport I deadhead the marigolds.No one–not a passenger, not a TSA, no one has ever asked what I am doing or why. When I asked my ag extension agent if I could dead head the columbines in front of the building, he said just a minute let me get you a large bag and clippers….I would advise people who grow endangered plants near the public walkways to post “no dead heading or seed collecting” if they are that worried that the precious seeds might end up in a normal flower bed. The vast majority of homeowners are going to compost this year’s flowers if they dont throw them in the trash. Which reminds me: has anyone noticed how tight the dwarf celosia keeps its seeds? I used to hang the flowers upside down and over the winter the seeds would drop onto the paper beneath. Not the 2022 crop.
Sally, last season’s compost pile produced the most productive tomatoes in our garden. Those we planted and fussed over got the blight in a bad way.I saved seeds from the compost pile tomatoes. Now, whether to plant them in the garden or back in the compost pile?
I have saved seed from compost pile tomatoes! They survived blight, etc. so they had to be rugged. As for “stealing seeds” I was with folks at a Historic Landscape conference visiting historic sites and they were stealing seeds left and right. I was appalled! I guess there was no harm done but I felt like they were taking advantage of our invitation to be there. I will take seeds from public places, street trees, etc. Or I will ask if I may take seeds from other places but I don’t feel right “stealing” from historic landscapes.
I admit to picking up stray sedum branches from the floor of the nursery and bringing them home to plant 🙂
Maria, no harm there. You’re in the clear.
I was speaking at the National Perennial Alliance last spring and the reception was held at the Bellevue Botanical Garden in a huge room with massive windows that looked out onto the rock garden. I took a little break from the reception to admire the plants and stood in front of one whose gorgeous seed heads I didn’t recognize. I asked a passing woman if she knew, and in a thick Scottish brogue she said ‘Pasque Flower — dead easy from seed.” — reached over, unceremoniously grabbed a seed head, handed it to me and walked off. To leave me criminally standing there, in front of the plate glass windows and 200 onlookers — as a speaker— mortified.
I kept the seed — I wasn’t going to be guilty of littering too. —MW
Lucky for you, Marianne! I can’t wait to hear how you enjoy your gifted (sacrificed) pasque flower.
In the 1950s my maternal grandmother, an African violet fan, came to visit my family. I was very young — maybe 7. We took her to our local plant nursery, Behnke’s. There we watched silently (except for my dad, who wasn’t her biggest fan and rarely silent) as she plucked a single leaf from a violet and slipped it in her pocket. “Thief!” said dad. That moment has stayed with me for all these decades and I confess to snipping a leaf here or there when I pass by an attractive coleus in a PUBLIC setting. I feel my long-dead dad’s eyes on me and I feel a lot of guilt, but I still do it. Inherited that bad gene I guess.
Great story. I bet no one at Behnke’s noticed. (John Peter Thompson, a Behnke grandson, are you looking in?) Pam, don’t you wish you still had your grandmother’s African violet?
I am inclined to think that a lot of us grew up being influenced by our neighbors, especially the elderly (or what seemed like elderly to a youngster) ladies that took us under their wings and mentored us in the finer tricks of the trade. I remember one such lady always reminding me that the plants that we “liberated” always grew the best. I was all magic back then.
Oh, yes, there were the neighbor ladies. An old wooded lot at the end of a suburban cut de sac was filled with tens of thousands of snowdrops…
I went through a serious iris rustling stage, mostly from abandoned homesteads or neglected roadside plantings….I mean, those things need separating once in a while, right?
Anne, they absolutely need to be separated…I’m turning a blind eye.
You’re a bad man!
Somedays, Duckford. Somedays.
Loved the rant, loved MOST of the comments, love Allen Bush.
I totally embarrassed my children years ago by collecting dry seed pods from hollyhocks growing wildly in the cracks of a church parking lot in Alexandria, VA! Bless me if I have sinned! (They grew into lovely plants.)
Judy, you are forgiven. For heavens sakes, your hollyhocks grew into “lovely plants.” Better than I’ve ever done. My hollyhocks are eternally decimated by rust with every planting. What the hell…I’m sowing more seed this year.
Collecting seeds (and sometimes plants, with property owner approval) from construction sites, especially in formerly rural areas now being turned into suburban “McMansion Estates” is considered acceptable “plant rescue” behavior in my opinion. I don’t think it’s wrong to collect seed from an area about to be bulldozed into oblivion.
Our Bloodroot, Spring Beauty, Trout Lilies, and May Apples are all “rescue plants” and we have a larger collection of pilfered seed-started specimens. (Note: Our biggest pumpkins grew out of our mulch pile)
April, I’ve been ahead ofd bulldozers a fimes, also. It saddens me to no end to lose native habitats.
OMGOSH, My first time reading on this blog and I am laughing myself silly. The comments are almost better than the rant! Here is my steal story: 30 years ago a house was going to be bulldosed for a road and I called all around town to get permission to dig up plants. No one had any knowledge of who to call. I finally went over and dug up a bunch of plants only to have a policeman come by (of course someone had called to say I was stealing plants). I told him I had tried to get permission and he finally looked at the few plants in the back seat and said well ok, but don’t come back. He didn’t see the trunk full of plants…….However, I was paid back as the iris came with borer (I was a novice then and didn’t know about borer til it was too late.
I will be a repeat visitor
Jacquelyn, you made my day. I’m thrilled you stumbled upon the Garden Rant, though I am sorry about your iris borer. Come back and see us anytime.