9 Foolproof Tips To Prevent Potted Plants From Being Stolen

It’s horrible.

You planted some beautiful potted plants in your garden or patio, but they’re not to be found.

What happened, you think?

You have been a victim of potted plants being stolen.

It’s a crime that happens more frequently than most people realize. The thief may pick flowers, steal fruits or vegetables. He may take the entire pot away in the worst case.

You can prevent potted plants from being stolen by using heavy pots, chaining pots together, bolting the pot down, or installing a security camera. You should always lock your garden gate and even get a dog if possible. You can even use motion-sensor lights or sprinklers to deter thieves.

In this post, I’ll help you pick some of the best choices to prevent your potted plants from being stolen.

Are you ready to protect your precious plants? Let’s go.

Here are 9 ways to prevent your potted plants from being stolen.

1. Use Heavy Pots For Your Plants
2. Chain Potted Plants Together
3. Bolt The Pot Plant To A Surface
4. Install A Surveillance Camera
5. Fence Your Garden
6. Lock Your Garden Gate
7. Get A Dog To Protect Your Garden
8. Use Motion-Sensor Lights And Sprinklers
9. Start A Neighborhood Watch

1. Use Heavy Pots For Your Plants

Many garden thieves want a quick and easy in and out dash to grab the pot plant and make their escape. Using heavy clay pots as your pot plants significantly increases their weight and make it much more difficult to do this.

Heavy, larger clay pots are also difficult to grab onto and usually require two people to move them. It may make it a little more difficult for you to move your pots around, but it is a protection measure worth trying out.

According to the Crimes Act 1900, section 520; it is an offence to steal plants or vegetables that don’t belong to you, or to destroy or damage them with intent to steal them. (findanyanswer.com)

2. Chain Potted Plants Together

Chaining several pots together is another preventative measure against stealing smaller to medium-sized potted plants.

You can use a chain as a decorative feature, doubling as a security measure to chain multiple pots together. You can use a metal chain for this or a sturdy rope that will be resistant to rotting.

When the thieves see too many pots connected for them to carry away, it may deter them from trying. Of course, this strategy will not stop a determined thief, but it may deter an opportunistic thief.

3. Bolt The Pot Plant To A Surface

Plant pots have drainage holes in the bottom, which can be used as a convenient way to secure a plant pot to a surface. If you have your potted plants on a stand or a wooden garden table, you could try this solution to prevent pot plant thievery.

Some plant stands have holes to allow water to flow through. If they do not, you can drill a hole in them yourself. The hole must be large enough to accept a bolt that will fit through one of the drainage holes in the pot.

Place the bolt through the stand or surface and into the pot via the drainage hole. Secure the bolt inside the pot with a washer and a nut. Make sure there are enough other drainage holes to compensate for the one you are blocking up. Then plant your plant in the pot as you normally would. 

The bolt secures the port to the stand, which will prevent someone from taking the pot and walking away with it.

4. Install A Surveillance Camera

Installing a surveillance camera in a visible position in your front garden where your pot plants are located may act as a deterrent to some criminals.

If people know they are being watched or recorded, they may be dissuaded from perpetrating their garden crimes. The surveillance camera can be real or fake, as long as it looks authentic enough to make the criminals doubt they can get away with their thieving ways.

If you do install a real one, you will at least have the evidence to nab the culprit, who could quite possibly be your next-door neighbor!

In the UK, we spend over £4 billion each year on plants and flowers, garden tools and other garden accessories, so it’s no surprise that over recent years, garden crime has increased significantly with up to 55% year on year growth. (insight-security.com)

5. Fence Your Garden

Fencing in your garden may seem like a drastic measure, but a fence can provide security as well as being a decorative feature.

A fence does not guarantee that your potted plants won’t be stolen, but it is certainly an effective deterrent. Most garden thieves are looking for an easy target. A sturdy fence that makes the job more difficult for the criminal will make them think twice before making an attempt.

Combining the fence with a visible surveillance camera may be an even more daunting prospect for would-be thieves.

6. Lock Your Garden Gate

Many gardeners may feel that they do not want to feel like they are living behind a prison fence, but sometimes these measures are necessary to protect our hard work and finances that have gone into creating the garden.

Putting a lock on the gate is another measure that increases the difficulty of thieves trying to steal your potted plants. If the gate is locked, they need to climb over the gate or fence to gain access and leave the same way with a heavy pot. Many thieves would consider this to be too much trouble and move on to an easier target.

7. Get A Dog To Protect Your Garden

If you are a gardener and an animal lover, a dog can be an ideal solution to the potted plant pilfery problem!

Dogs have superior hearing and eyesight to humans and can alert us to any intruders. Thieves who know that a property has dogs will often avoid the property in favor of ones that do not have a canine on guard.

Dogs make a noise, which is bad for clandestine criminal activity, and the thief risks injury should the dog manage to get to the intruder.

From a gardening point of view, make sure that you select a breed of dog that will not dig up your garden!

8. Use Motion-Sensor Lights And Sprinklers

Many of the criminal activities in our neighborhoods are conducted under cover of darkness. Motion sensors around your potted plants that activate spotlights or your garden sprinkler system are sure to surprise thieves and cause them to abandon their mission to get at your plants.

Many modern garden spotlights are solar-powered, so there is no need to run electrical wiring to them from your house.

9. Start A Neighborhood Watch

If this kind of thievery is a general problem in your neighborhood, it means that other people in your street are also victims of garden thieves.

Getting together with your neighbors to develop some tactics to stop the potted plant thieves may help stamp out this type of crime in your neighborhood.

If people become aware of criminal activity in their neighborhood and have a reporting mechanism for suspicious behavior, they become more aware and vigilant on their streets.

Neighborhoods where people actively look out for each other generally have lower crime rates than neighborhoods where every person is for themselves.