Vandalism and Theft

Many people worry about vandalism and plants being stolen. And it happens. In most Australian cities, anything on the verge is fair game.

Many people worry about vandalism and plants being stolen. And it happens. In most Australian cities, anything on the verge is fair game.

I haven't had much trouble and I think it is mainly because I keep the stakes low by using inexpensive tubestock from the community nursery and try to propagate some of my own.

Sometimes plants get stomped on and need to be replaced. Sometimes it's dogs.

Sometimes flowers disappear and I don't know if it was passers-by, or the possum at night, or maybe the blue tongue lizard. Keep your special plants inside the garden. There are plenty of attractive and cheap native plants for this space.

I have it on good authority (grandson) that new trees with only grass around them can inspire children to shake the tree. I wonder if the planting around street trees can make vandalism less of a problem.

For me, the most common vandals of verges are people that park on the grass verge compacting the soil and damaging the tree roots. Verge gardens certainly seem to say "no parking" better than signs.

Remember above when you thought about how different verge gardens make you feel. What do you think might make you feel like deliberately damaging a verge garden?

row of immaculate grass verges on my walk to the shop - yes that's real grass!

When walking to the shops, I pass this verge treatment where the postie bike and anyone walking are pushed onto the road with ribbons and some little fences.

I feels to me like the fences are an aggressive act, appropriating public land, excluding people from that space. No doubt the proud residents (there are three of them now) see it quite differently.

It makes me want to stomp on that perfect grass and leave my footprints just to show them that it isn't their land, it belongs to everyone.

Would that make me a vandal? Fortunately, I only pass this way occasionally. If I lived next door and saw it every day, it would be much harder to ignore.

Theft is another concern as some people think anything on the verge is fair game. If they see the expensive plants they buy at the big nurseries, or could sell at the markets, newly planted and easy to pop out, it will be tempting. By the time your local native tubestock has grown enough to tempt, it will be firmly rooted into the ground.

Do you think the design of a verge garden could make vandalism and theft more or less likely? That would be a great research topic. Tell me what you think in the comments.

This free article is part of the Understanding the Space section: bite-sized introductions to gardening in these small but wonderfully complex spaces.

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