to think someone should not be picking daffodils in public areas that are for everyone to enjoy?

[diamondlizard]

been to a kids party today and on the way there i commented on how nice it is when the suns out and the daff etc are out

on way home someone a young womam was picking a massive bunch

these are the sort of daffs that are in the middle of a village on the side of the road

I love daffodils and crocus flowers, really brightens up a place, even the side of a grotty road in Wembley looks pretty as the council have planted a sea if daffodils.

I let my kids pick daisies and that's it. They understood that from very young as daisies are easy to recognise. Now if they ask permission (like in MIL'S garden) they can pick odd rose for a vase.

YANBU. Its the sort of thing you are taught as children. Isn't it?...

i would gladly watch kids pick daffs. can't we plant anything else in this country this time of year? what about all our lovely wild flowers, can we not cultivate them instead of sterile uniform lines of those awful yellow daffs. we really need to step up town planting imo.

there was something on here i think about guerilla gardening. just planting in boring bland empty spaces. get kids to do that! lots of fun

YANBU. I couldn't believe it today when I saw a couple of girls, aged about 7 & 8, picking armfuls of daffodils in St James's Park. Their mother stood watching adoringly as if it was the cutest thing. I tutted as I walked by muttering "it's a good job we all don't allow our children pick the flowers or else they'd be none left for everyone else to enjoy." I'm kicking myself now for not berating her directly.

That really annoys me - they are for EVERYONE to enjoy not to be nicked and taken home for just them to enjoy - gggrrr...

I don't like even my own garden flowers being picked.

When I got married, MIL, her sister and a friend of hers came over to the UK and stayed at my house. I coped - but I did get cross when they picked the only decent rose I'd had for some time and put it in a vase. :(

I got crosser when MIL encouraged DS1 to pick the head off a flower in the garden - why??? Especially as I had spent a long time persuading him not to pull leaves or petals or flowers off plants. Grrr!

my Dcs were never allowed to pick dafs or bluebells. They were told why. Daisies and wild garlic yes. If we found one already broken then they could have that and loved giving it to Granny ( me in loud voice...'It was broken already' to any passer by!). One woman in this village let her kids pick all the dafs, rampage through the snowdrops/bluebells and generally never tell them off/explain why. Unfortunately both of them are now addicts and homeless as she abandoned them to go live in Spain because (her words) she couldn't control them and they did what they want and she cant take anymore. sad.

Our village has a long avenue of daffs. They are there because volunteers pick and sell them for a cancer charity.

Thumb...I agree. I took one of my nanny charges to my brothers wedding and she went out with my nephew and picked all the beautiful crocus heads off!!! Couldn't get cross tho as they were very contrite and only wanted them to give the bride. Cue me on my hands and knees, in wedding finery, putting one limp head after another back into it's stem. Just for the photos I might add. We often laugh at those photos!

Aww, that is kind of cute, if wrong. I'd loved to have seen you trying to replace the crocus heads though!

I was stopped at a light in front of a local mall one day, and there was a woman pulled over next to the big sign that said, "___ Mall," digging up lillies from the landscaping with a trowel. I assume she was stealing them so she could replant them at home; she was in a standard sedan, not a work vehicle, nor was she wearing any sort of uniform that indicated she was with a landscaping company.

+1 for not picking wild flowers. I'm very surprised people would think this to be ok. Grr. They're protected for a reason. As for the daffodils, the people nicking them are jerks.

There's a lot of confusion over which flowers you can or can't pick in public places. It is illegal to pick daffodils as they are cultivated, not wild, and therefore belong to someone (council, private land owner etc), and picking them is therefore theft.

It is ok to pick wild flowers as long as you do not damage the plant , or uproot it. Exceptions to this are if the wild flower is on a protected list, or is on protected land such as a nature reserve.

Therefore, it is ok to pick bluebells in the woods, but you are not allowed to sell them after, and it is fine to pick daisies.

That said, I would not encourage my kids to pick bluebells or other wild flowers as I think they should be left alone (except the daisies!), but technically it is not illegal to pick them.

Budgiegirl As you say, it may not be technically illegal but I still don't think it is OK. I love to visit a bluebell wood in the spring but if people go pulling them up then they are not there for everyone to enjoy in situ.

Wasn't there a news story a year or two ago about some family who had allowed their 3 DCs to pick daffodils in a park and a local councillor had asked them not to and, I think, called the police. The parents were outraged and had gone to the local paper thinking they would get sympathy because of their poor little precious LOs being upset by the nast man over a few flowers. Only public opinion weighed in against them IIRC

I wouldn't worry about legalities. Just don't pick them as they are for everyone. So it's more morals than anything.

I was reminded of this thread yesterday when I saw a grown man out with his gf or DW taking handfuls of jelly beans to stuff into his mouth in the garden centre yesterday. Same mindset!

YANBU my poor dcs got a nice lecture about this again..why won't they listen? when dd1 and da2 presented me with a daff each on the way out of the park. They are 5 & 8 and have never been allowed to pick them, it infuriates me that other parenta can't manage to teach their dcs not to do it...ggrrrr

Ummm so you picked them not for a gift, but as a remembrance? If you had left them EVERYONE could have used them as a remembrance! Not sure what the point of all your financial info is - apart from to gain sympathy?
Yuck.