I've been known to use those huge solid round laundry tubs that you can get at walmart very cheap(they have rope handles-you can take off). I painted a few with terra cotta paint and you really cant tell what they were before lol. They just look like all the other plastic terra looking pots but huge! I grew bananas and brugmansias in them last year. Just make sure to drill large holes in the bottoms.

I haven't had plants stolen, but someone did take a beautiful and large piece of petrified wood from my succulent bed. My hubby gave that piece of wood to me for my garden and some a**wipe walked off with it. For the record - Bullmastiffs more often protect their "people", not their people's stuff. Like Tom, we also hung up those cute "Bullmastiff Crossing" signs on our fence, but they are mostly empty threats as our bullmastiff wouldn't harm anyone who entered our property unless he thought WE were being threatened....he wouldn't care at all if someone walked off with our plants or anything else on the property. His job, as he sees it, is to protect us. Now, if someone walked up and tried to tote one of us off the property....then he'd be just a bit upset and have to do something about it. A bullmastiff charging at you with that determined look in his eye is a scary site to behold. He is loyal to his PACK (owners) and will protect them with his life....doesn't give a hoot about their property, though. I'm sure there are some of that breed who would protect property, but it isn't the norm. English mastiffs DO protect your property...bullmastiffs, not so much. Sir Poopsalot.....? LOLOLOLOL. Love it, Mike! I'm sure the folks waiting at the vet's office get a kick out of hearing the vet assistant call Sir Poopsalot back for his appt. Renee

Japanese Maples are a prime target for plantkleptos. I often suspect the landscape crew that installs them, replenishing their stock for the next unsuspecting customer. The reason for my suspicion, is that they often disappear the same night after they are installed. Plant thefts are very common in my area. I have lost dozens of them, often right under my nose. I once took three potted plants to a newly prepared bed in my front yard and had to go inside to make a phone call, when I returned a few minutes later, 2 were gone and the third was sitting in the middle of the lawn, either dropped in their hurry or couldn't manage to carry but two. No sign of the crook. I have had them rip up dozens of plants that had been in the ground for months, but just starting to bloom. Once we left to go to a nearby Clinic for a routine test and upon returning, found that someone had stolen 2 large Banana trees fron the middle of our back yard, that were planted in large decorative pots. Yes they took the pots too! The last item taken, recently, was one of my bird baths, that weighed about 200 lbs. Feel sorry for the birds and other wildlife that used it, because it will not be replaced. I'm tired of providing plants and garden decor for people that are just plain criminal and have no conscience. Rb

I just want to tell my story, just because I'm a bit sad about it. I moved to my new place almost six months ago, and I had to store the plants in pots at my parents' place until I get things organized, so I started moving them to the new place slowly. The new place has a central courtyard and walkways around that I can put pots on outside my apartment, as well as a patio in the back. I had a lot of stuff to move, so one day I put the plants I just brought over beside my car in the garage. I figured, it's in a back corner by a brightly-lit back door, and they are just plants, mostly ones that didn't look all that impressive, since they are just returning from the winter, so they should be okay for a couple of days (I did this once before with no problems). I went out the next morning, checking on the plants on the way out, and they were there. When I went out again in the afternoon, they were all gone! They weren't plants that I needed for my arrangement necessarily, and there was nothing particularly special that I couldn't replace, but many of them were seedlings that I've been nursing for over a year, so that they could possibly flower next year, like irises that miraculously germinated despite the seeds being old, a vancouveria, the lone-surviving geranium from a batch that didn't quite make it, etc. Now, what I don't understand is, why would anyone roam around a garage looking to steal plants in plastic temporary pots and a few clay pots that look piddly to begin with? I am sure most people wouldn't even be able to identify most of them from the state that they are in (four or five 8-in iris seedlings don't look like much other than weedy grass). I do hope that whoever ended up with them take care of them well, and they aren't ones I've figured into my patio garden anyway, but I would just like to know what in the world were they thinking?!? Are they stupid, plain malicious, or simply pathetic? They aren't worth anything to anyone (especially in our apartment building) except to the person who grew them and knew their history. Sigh.