I can barely afford to replace the plants, much less put up a security camera. Besides, they'd probably steal it.

Sure wish we could plant some bait plants, stake out your house (with a pot of coffee to stay awake) and catch them red-handed. Maybe bait with plastic plants, go the old crazy lady way and plant fake silk flowers except with lines attached back to the fence, hidden by mulch. Add flood lamp and siren triggered by someone pulling at a plant attached to the line, and you can wake all the neighbors up at the same time!

Just thinking wild & crazy, it's so maddening.
Anyone you are a little suspicious of?

Put up a sign announcing that the roses have all been sprayed with some extremely toxic pesticide? Temporary, at best...

Zuzu, that's awful! Maybe you could don your gauntlet gloves, pick some poison oak leaves (if you have some in your area), and place them within the new roses' foliage. You might even spot the culprit in your neighborhood that way - whoever is walking around scratching themselves, with a rash on their hands and arms!

As for roses I would not recommend, I would include Queen Elizabeth the climber (not the grandiflora) on my list. Its canes are enormous and rigid and climb straight up, sort of like bamboo, with merciless thorns, and it's a stingy bloomer to boot. I shovel pruned four of them years ago, and it nearly required a backhoe to pull them out of the ground. The bases were as big around as small trees.

Mike - How about Stinging Nettle? Heard that is NOT a fun plant to deal with. From what I saw on Mythbusters, Poison Oak/Poison Ivy doesn't work on everyone. However, Stinging Nettle seems to work with EVERYONE. And, from Googling the images, I can see why. Ouch!

Anything that hurts the thief would hurt my cats, and they'd bring the poison oak back to me on their fur.

A single strand of barbed wire about 18" above the ground surrounding your land would 1) not hurt the kitties (#1 priority), 2) not be unsightly as it could easily be covered by plants, 3) should not be effected by HOAs (if applicable), 4) would hurt like HELL if tripped over (trust me on this one), and 5) super easy to install unless you have a major ton of acreage. When I was younger (mid teens), I helped my father and sister string 6 strands of barbed wire across 5 acres of land. Took about a week to do and we didn't do that much bloodletting.

Or you could just train Pepplegoose and Rorschach to be adorable and distract the thieves? Or maybe they could be attack cats?

Yes, an attack kitty!

Can you get a fake security camera? Phil used to make them..they are just a box like thing with blinking lights....of course, a knowledgeable thief, would know it wasn't real.

I tried Henry Hudson a few times and it always died, so I gave up on it.

Melva, I really think this person would just steal the camera along with the plants.

As for barbed wire, as a former resident of refugee camps and DP camps, I can't think of anything that would evoke worse memories. Besides, I'm getting old and my balance is going haywire, so I'd be the one to trip over it -- early and often. I also don't want to hurt any of the children and dogs in the neighborhood or arouse the anger of their possibly litigious parents and owners.

Plant Alligator Juniper (don't know the "real" name, but it's a low-growing juniper that grows like a weed and hurts skin when you brush against it.. I like to think of it "biting" skin) along the edge of the property.

How about this for a "fake camera" system: get some small wooden boxes (Michaels, Walmart, Hobby Lobby), paint 'em black, drill teeny hole, get red "fairy" Christmas lights from eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/100-LED-Re...), attach to either light-sensitive timer or a regular timer ($7/walmart) so that it goes on at night, and hang near item is at. People are not going to get too curious as to a black box w/a red light pointing at them.. everyone knows it's a camera. Or, you can get a couple of Icee cup domes, paint them opaque grey, attach them to the large Icee cup painted black, and hang them nearby in trees w/some scrap wires leading out of them and down the tree. Will look just like a camera thingie.

I can understand with the barbed wire thing. And you're not that old!!! *HUG!!!!!!!!!!!!* (but, you can claim "flashbacks" or something and just shoot people like crazy Vietnam vets do.. my father included! Although he's never shot someone that I know of. I know he's shot TOWARDS someone, but not actually shot them)

I don't know how close the stolen plants are near your garden, but you could install a motion activated light very cheaply. I got one from Walmart for about $15 including the floodlights. I simply replaced my regular outside light with the motion detected one. I should have sprung for the more expensive model with the "leave on" feature. If I am outside at night, I have to wave at the light to turn it back on sometimes. One night, I was finishing up watering the hostas and heard a snake slithering. At that moment the light went off. I didn't want to move, in case it was a copperhead snake. I was standing as still as possible trying to wave at the light, not get water in the windows and not get bitten by the snake. I am glad that the snakes are eating rodents, just don't want them surprising me. I guess they like the hostas. I typically make a lot of noise when I go in the back yard, just in case.

I think that they also have solar powered motion activated lights. If they aren't attached to the building, the person may steal those also. I guess that would be a good location for very thorny roses. You could also plant a buffer of common plants or something pretty that can irritate the skin like artemesia. I have seen this thing for repelling deer. It attaches to a hose or has a water reservoir. The motion detector goes off and it acts as a sprinkler. Maybe if the person knows that he/she is caught and gets wet he/she will acquire plants elsewhere.

Some of the new neighbors are gardeners, so I have people to talk plants with. None are into roses, most want to grow butterfly gardens. I am so relieved. You may remember that my nightmare neighbor, the boozehag, moved out this spring. I am relieved that the new neighbors seem much nicer.

I agree that the solution depends on whether the culprit is a person, although that motion-sensitive sprayer device might be fun. People don't like to get hit with a surprise spray of water any more than animals do.

...

I don't usually shovel prune roses until they are dead. One notable exception was Gloire de Mosseusses (ARE spelling). After I dug it up the general health of my rose garden improved measurably. It was cultivating disease spores for the whole garden! I've had BS problems with Golden Celebration, but its spring show was always so glorious that I couldn't dig it up ... even though I was sorely tempted through most of the growing season. Dortmund got affected by Roundup that I sprayed nearby and looked horrible. I shovel pruned it.

Some roses I might not try again for a while ... Fragrant Cloud: The first one got eaten whole by voles in its first week. The second one got slowly nibbled to death over four weeks by other furry critters. Haven't lost two of the same rose here, except for that. Playboy: I have always been wowed by this rose- by its vigor and the exuberance of its flowers; but this spring it put out lots of lovely purple leaves. These got eaten. Then there was a frost. Then it promptly died.

I do frequently decide I've put a rose in the wrong place and then try to move it. Sometimes I get away with it. Mostly they die, though sometimes they live. I lost Mme Hardy and Lady Emma Hamilton to moving.

I moved rountuit to the back of the garden. I did a 3 way swap -Souvenier de la Malmaison, Will Shakespeare 2000, roundtuit. I dug out rt, immediately put it in a bucket of water, expanded and enriched the hole, filled it with water, moved the next one directly into the hole, etc. All are alive and well!

Chris Marlowe is still recovering from an earlier move, but his canes are still green, so I just keep watering and hoping for the best.

The next candidate for moving is vineyard song, but I am currently just cutting it back after blooming. I like the blooms, but it has a more sprawling habit than I expected. It is blending with a groundcover rose, baby blanket, it may work out.

I still haven't seen a bloom on rountuit. It has 5' tall sprawling canes and not a bloom in sight. Maybe next year. At least the area around my favorite rose, Tiffany, is looking better now. Rountuit was crowding her.

I am beginning to agree with zuzu and prefer the hybrid teas. Although, I will stick to own root hardy ones for the time being. Buck's Honey Sweet has been fabulous this year. Lots of big, beautiful blooms on an upright shrub all season long!

I've now re-affirmed my own thing of giving plants a chance, even when they look deader than dead. I found a rose in the middle of my back yard that was dead. Dead crispy dead. Canes were crumbling. So, with a heavy heart, I dug it up. The bud union was about 4" below the dirt level and, low & behold, it was green, along with about 2" of big fat, thick cane above the union. Knowing that it was one of my Sterling Silvers, I had an empty spot in my pond area where I had planted the wrong rose (Sheila's Perfume) and so dug it up to transplant it in the front and put this dead-caned-but-live-bud-union rose in it's place. Didn't do anything special that I didn't do to any of the other roses.. just watered the heck out of that area (but I've been watering that area anyways as it has other plants like the crane's bill, plumbago, delphiniums, and a baby Japanese maple [Lion's Head]). Low & behold yesterday evening I found like 10 leaves on it!

never give up!

That one is a survivor! I am glad that it is coming back since you lost so many this year.

Took a picture of my poor pathetic baby.. here he is! :)

I hope he does well in the coming year. I always have a number that look like that. Some live and thrive, others make that their permanent look. I find it helps to plant another almost on top (assuming it is dying) - it will then flourish and create a rose-jam.

Since I last posted here, I've acquired a new housekeeper and my life is now complete. She comes here for 4 hours once a week and restores order, vacuuming, dusting, buffing the hardwood floors and mopping the others, and erasing the grubby marks I leave around every doorknob when I come in from outside.

I do love a clean house. I just don't want to be the one cleaning it.