Who steals someone else’s vegetable seedlings?

Craig at Ellis Hollow already posted today about the rash of plant thefts at Plantations lately. As if it were not bad enough that someone CUT DOWN five conifers from the Kienzel Overlook early this year, well past Christmas tree-stealing season, recent thieves cleaned out the heritage vegetable garden cold frame of heirloom plants, took a large potted agave from the container garden collection, and swiped potted seedlings from the herb garden when the gardener who was planting them stepped away!

Director Don Rakow says in the Cornell Chronicle article about it:

These thefts have a ripple effect. They rob faculty and students of the teaching value of these collections, they demoralize our dedicated gardening staff and destroy valuable research,” said Donald Rakow, Cornell Plantations director. “Many of these plants are irreplaceable. Taking such plants is just like stealing priceless exhibits from a major museum.”

In a place like Ithaca, especially a campus like Cornell, where nothing bad seems to happen, it’s easy to forget sometimes that people, plant people included, are still opportunists, some of them just calculating criminals.

The Cornell Chronicle has the whole story and a list of plants stolen. If you should be riding the bus or walking the halls and hear someone bragging about what they got away with, contact the Cornell Police at 607-255-1111.