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.

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.

What kind of poppies? If opium poppies (Papaver somniferum, aka breadseed or peony poppies), I would guess they were removed in attempt to extract opium from them. This is done long before the pods are fully ripe for seed gathering. The issue is that a few pods will not produce anything useful in that regard - you need fields of them - which is why these are tolerated by the DEA as garden plants.

The contractor is responsible for job site security and in this case it should be his insurance that pays, as I understand the home to be unoccupied. This gets cloudy when the home is occupied because contractors are responsible for job site security while homeowners are responsible for home security. Additionally, I would argue that his request that the appliances be delivered to the site early makes him further responsible. As the expert it his job to know the risks and rewards of having items on site weeks early and accept those risks. You can try to work out a middle ground with him, but be aware that once you claim it on your insurance, you can't work out a deal with him, in many states he can't even reimburse you the deductible once you have filed a claim. All monies collected from him must be reimbursed to the insurance company once a claim has been made. Since you still have to work with him, I would personally just eat the $5,000 and call it a lesson learned, but that is your call. Because “the burden of responsibility will always fall on the property." This is not correct. Your insurance will always protect you from the bad acts of others regardless of who is responsible. Your insurance exists to protect you from casualty and theft losses, so it will pay even when you are not the party that is legally responsible. Your insurance may then choose to subrogate the claim against the responsible party or not. In this case the OP's insurance will pay, because the OP had a theft loss, that doesn't mean that the OP is the responsible party, it simply means that the loss was the OP's.