How about window boxes, or something else "attached" to your house? Otherwise, having lived in the PNW, I'd suggest a fence and a dog :D

The only fool proof idea would be to NOT put containerized plants outside of your home. Enjoy them elsewhere in your home where theft will not be an issue.

Big and heavy doesn't work.

I second the window boxes or perhaps those half baskets that attach to vertical surfaces. A window box doesn't have to be under a window, it will look just as pretty along a solid wall on the front of your house.

The key is to keep things away from street traffic. If the theives have to work for something or have a good chance of being caught, they might go elsewhere.

Not entirely kidding. :)

Smear Tanglefoot on the pots. Not only will it deter snails but maybe the human pests.

you could cement the pot to the ground

"Big and heavy doesn't work." Voice of experience, Iris?? :(

What's 'tanglefoot?'

Thanks everyone. I'll have to consider window boxes. I have a concrete slab in front of my brick house, screaming for color.

Oh, and my big and heavy japanese foot bridge, about 20 feet from the curb sprouted feet one day. I'll have to attach the pots, some how.

Keep all your plant grouped together. A theif will avoid a group they have to pick out of. It's better for the theif to have a single choice than have to figure out what plants what. You can also have theif plants. Try painting the rim on the bottom with glow in the dark paint. Let your neibors know about it. A few are caught every year because they don't see my initals glowing on the bottom. They can be blocks away and every one knows it's stolen. I also had an old lady people were stealing her plants. I staged a theif and took pictures. I made a large letter sign that said "are you next?" You could read the sign from a distance but you couldn't see who's picture it was. She never lost another plant.

Try land mines! LOL. If you have a good location where you could set up a game came. Can pick up a digital one at Wal-Mart for under a $100.00. Right now since it is not hunting season you can sometimes find them at a huge discount. I suggest the digital because it will save you a ton of money on film and developing.

Colby

Tanglefoot
http://www.tanglefoot.com/products/index.htm

No affiliation, blah blah. :)

Messy but works.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tanglefoot

I'm lucky enough to be married to a welder who makes me all types of hooks ,etc to keep my pots and benches from being stolen. My problem was a garge sale I had a few years ago in one of driveways where I put two old McCoy pots ( this driveway has all my houseplants and tropicals near the garage )people stole them . Now we hold the garage sales on the other side of yard where the plants are growing in ground. They still ask to see my plants on the other side but the answer is no ... you get busy on a Sat with 6 or more people and other people do bad things unfortunately.

I made two 5'x 1 1/2' pressure treated troughs for annuals in front of my city home. These I lag bolted to the sidewalk before filling with soil. They still steal the newly planted annuals. Lost 1/3 the first week this year. People suck.
No one has tried to steal my roses in 1/2 barrels.

Another thought , Go to HOME DEPOT and get a motion detecter, you can use lights with it so they will be in bright light to see, or connect it to a bell to attract a lot of attention. both work.

Lisa- boy, you've got this all down to a science, don'tcha?! LOL!!!!

Lisa, you're great. I want to be the crazy lady on the block.

years ago we were posted to Lima, Peru for five years. Bands of poor, begging children would sell flowers at street stop lights after stealing them from gardens. They were worse than army ants. We gave up on flowers in the front yard. The backyard was another story...20' high walls with razor wire and cats claw vines. Even then someone put a steer hide over the razor wire and tried dropping into the back gardens. Fortunately our boxer nailed him. It was nice living in a country where the courts didn't hold you accountable for thieves that got hurt trying to steal from you.

If you already have a concrete slab, maybe building a large planter box out of concrete blocks, hiding sides with English Ivy would only take one season. Wouldn't deter stealing your plants, though. I second the notion of a motion detector light.

Sorry about your Japanese footbridge disappearing...ouch...that would hurt! josh

Let the fire ants take over the pots. You won't stop anyone from stealing the containers but they'll be really sorry once they get them in the car.

Best advice yet the fire ants!

My advice, follow the post above about the "Game tracker" night time camera. Of course they might steal that too. Motion lights always detered me when I was a teenager.....

drive threaded steel posts into the ground where you want your pots. The stuff looks kind of like rebar, and you can get it at most home improvement stores. Drive the posts in deep enough where its definitely difficult to pull them up again. If you are really worried about it, dig a big hole, attach a bolt-and-huge washer system at the bottom of the steel bar, then backfill the hole after you set the bar into the hole with maybe 6" of the bar above ground level. Use the biggest washers (stack them in increasing sizes if you have to) you can get your mitts on. Stomp the soil down really well, or use cement to fill the hole if you are even more worried. Then, at soil level, use a large washer just below the pot, thread the pot on to the steel bar through the center drainage holes (drill other drainage holes to make up for it), add another series of washers until you get to a really big one, bolt the washers into place, fill the pot with soil and then plant your plants. People can then TRY to make off with your pots, but it will take several REALLY strong people or a truck with some kind of tow system to dislodge the pot--and you should notice that kind of noise.

ljrmiller(z7 NV)

I have been considering a system similar to what ljrmiller previously posted for the past couple of weeks. I have a beautiful vitex that I grew from a cutting that I want to put in front of my A/C unit at my apartment.

I am going to place a corkscrew anchor, like bad pet owners have to keep their dogs from running loose through the trailer park, through the center drain hole of the pot. Then take galvanized bailing wire, tie it to the eyelet on the corkscrew and wrap the wire tightly across the top of the root ball to anchor the plant thoroughly to the ground. As to not damage the plants roots I am going to place burlap across the surface of the rootball. Finally I will add a thorough layer of mulch to not only aid in weed control but to hide the wires that secure the plant to the ground as well. I might be doing this a s soon as this coming weekend. I'll post photos of the finished product.

A simple tether system can be all you need, all you need is sturdy (non-rotting) rope, a brick, a heavy stick (or something, a tent stake works), and a little patience.

Tie the rope around the brick. Bury the brick, with the rope sticking up. Thread the rope into the pot. Tie the rope to the stick. Fill and plant normally. If someone tries to steal the pot, it'll come up an inch or so (you want to leave a little slack, in case you need to move one of the pots), then it won't move further. Most thieves will move on at that point, they need to grab and go, they're not going to dink around trying to figure out why your pots aren't moving.

Though that may work best somewhere like Arizona, where the dirt is practically like cement. Places that have more, er, soil-like dirt may need to dig the brick in a bit more, or use a big concrete block or something.

I made an account just so I could comment on this. I've been searching for ideas for the last hour and I've finally got it. First I thought you might put all your plant pots on pressure-activated alarm mats that would go off when the item gets stolen. As good as an idea as this was, the only products I could find that fit this criteria were too expensive, save creating one of these yourself with some wires, batteries, and gadgetry. So, my next thought was magnetic door alarms: fasten one piece to the plant pot and the other to a nearby surface. Not a bad idea. But it was a bit awkward to imagine, practically speaking. Where would it fit nicely on the surface of the pot? Is it waterproof? So my final and best thought was to place one of those bluetooth "lost key" trackers in a plastic bag and place the bag at the bottom of your plant pot before potting the plant. If it goes missing, you could ise your phone's app to communicate with it and fond it. Only concern there is: how extensive is the range? Anyways, these are just thoughts. Perhaps the magnetic door alarm WAS the best one.

If you lived in a rather arid area this would be easy. I would have said plant some agave, opuntia, and/or cholla cactus as a border. Fools who would go through that to reach potted plants would deeply regret their actions.

I drove an 18" all thread through the hole of my pot and into the ground. I put a wide washer and screw till it was tight on the bottom of my pot. Filled bottom with heavy rocks for weight and irrigation. Plus dirt and plants and made for a

hopefully theft-proof accent to yard.

Big and heavy doesn't work? I guess maybe how big and how heavy might be a determining factor :-) I have a collection of large glazed ceramic containers planted wth Japanese maples and dwarf conifers.....expensive plants. And even exposed to full view, they have never been touched!! Considering some of the containers weigh upwards of 100lb empty and well over that planted, it would take a very determined thief or a couple of accomplices to shift one of those puppies!

And there are NO fire ants in the PNW :-)

ljrmiller .... the first answer was brilliant!!!! And I could not agree with you more how about a shot gun hanging out of letter box 👍

I live in a very urban area and big and heavy works fine for me

Hi. I have a porch downtown and a window ledge just low enough at one end that thieves took my potted flowers. I have since replaced them all with inexpensive geraniums (porch) tethered inside my window frame with tough plastic spiral cord I found in a scrap bin, laced through the pot itself under the dirt. I cut holes in the back of the pot. And on the window ledge, up high, I did the same around the base of an artificial succulent tree plant, thrifted, and cut half the bottom out of the pot and filled it with rocks that would rain down on the head of anyone who did manage to pull it to the edge. No plant theft since.

Don't just quit and resign yourself to thinking you live in a bad neighborhood. Jerks come from all over to steal. Outsmart them.