Row as garden expert says it’s ok to take home cuttings from parks

YOU could call it a green collar crime: a gardening expert has suggested it is acceptable to snip plant cuttings from public spaces.

Author Kay Maguire admitted she has done so before and insisted most gardeners wouldn’t see it as theft. But her comments sparked a row, with critics warning green-fingered thieves risk ‘obliterating’ plants in public parks and gardens.

Writing in Gardeners’ World magazine, Miss Maguire, who is married to a park manager, said: ‘I defy any plant lover to deny being tempted to take a cutting when face to face with a long-yearned for or beautiful specimen.

‘I bet many of us (confession: me included) have snuck out the odd specimen in a pocket. Baldly labelled as theft, I admit it doesn’t sound like my finest hour, but I suspect most gardeners wouldn’t think it like that and genuinely believe it comes from a good place – a passion for plants, and a desire to increase their knowledge and develop the craft of gardening is surely behind the act rather than a vulgar need to possess and own?’

She said in public places such as parks and municipal flowerbeds ‘snipping the odd cutting is probably all right’.

But Matthew Pottage, curator of the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Wisley in Surrey, said: ‘If everyone who visited a park or garden did this, plants would be obliterated.

‘At Wisley, we welcome over one million visitors to the garden each year and while we experience theft, thankfully it isn’t enough to ruin the garden.’ Around ten to 15 plants a year are stolen from Wisley, including the recent theft of a rare Galanthus ‘Mighty Atom’ snowdrop.

Along with many of the country’s leading gardens, including the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew and Edinburgh, Wisley now has CCTV cameras to deter theft.

Slough council was also forced to put up CCTV in a park in February after plants were pinched. Councillor Joginder Bal, commissioner for environment and leisure, said some visitors had treated the park like ‘their own personal flower shop, snipping roses and pulling up plants’.

Miss Maguire has written several books for the RHS including Grow your Own Crops in Pots, and Big Ideas, Small Spaces.