I am no gardener, but I enjoy garden, plants, and flowers. When I lived in Kent, I had an enormous garden, which I filled with shrubs because someone advised me that they needed little care and attention. This was good advice.

There was a strip of earth next to where I parked my car at night. I filled this with various shrubs that needed almost no care. One of these plants was a very slow growing conifer, which looked like a miniature Christmas tree. It grew close to where I entered the driver’s door of my car.

One day, I noticed that this tiny tree was no longer in its place. It had disappeared. I thought that maybe it had died and rotted away. After that, I thought little if anything about the missing plant. Where it grew was soon covered with foliage from the neighbouring fast-growing shrubs.

Many weeks later, a uniformed policeman visited my house and asked me if anything, such as garden tools or plants, had gone missing from my land. At first, I thought that this was an odd request. Then, I remembered the mysterious vanishing of my small conifer. I told the policeman about this. Then, he told me that there had been a garden thief operating in the area and the police were collecting evidence.

I told the policeman that I could not believe that my tiny plant could have been of any value for a thief. He explained to me that plants are valuable, and that the maturer they were, the greater their value. I was amazed that there was such a species of criminal as a plant thief.  But, since then, I have heard it is quite common, especially amongst respectable looking visitors to horticultural gardens such as Kew Gardens.

Well, as the saying goes: ‘you learn something new everyday’