To think that it's not ok to pick the flowers

[GiveMeShade]

I live on a street that has trees dotted along the pavements. There is a tree immediately outside my house. Like some of the other residents on the street, I have planted flowers around the base of the tree. It looks lovely and I think helps to make the road look loved and cared for by the people that live there.

Just now I was tidying in my front living room and saw a woman with a little boy knelt down by the tree in front of my house. The boy started picking some of the flowers and then they started to walk off. I went to the door, said "excuse me, your son has just picked the flowers that I've planted". The woman said she was sorry but she didn't think they belonged to anyone, her son wanted to pick the flowers so she said he could.

I responded that surely she knew that someone would have planted them and asked why was she letting her son pick flowers that someone has taken the time to enjoy. She shrugged and said she lets her son pick flowers and again that she didn't think they were anyone's.

I think this is a really weird attitude. It's a small thing but in planting those flowers I've tried to make this little patch of land look nice, for anyone walking past to enjoy and it pisses me off that this woman is teaching her kid that it's ok to pick the flowers (no doubt to be dropped on the ground and forgotten about 2 minutes later).

BTW, I am well aware that this land doesn't belong to me, but in the same way that people hopefully wouldn't let their kids pick flowers from a park or some other public land where flowers have been planted for everyone's enjoyment, I don't think it's ok to do the same in this situation.

It's not your property to plant on or police.

Yes, god forbid that anyone should try and do anything nice for neighbours or even (shudder) strangers.

Aren't we meant to be saving the bees? That's a really good reason to not pick flowers.

My DC only pick daisies or buttercups or dandelions. If everyone picked wild or planted flowers there would be none left.

Honestly I dont see the big deal, wheres the harm. No one paid money, or put any effort into planting them.

If you had any idea how difficult it is to get wild flowers to grow on decent soil, and the effort one has to go through to keep a wildflower patch going year on year, you'd know that actually, it takes alot of effort into making planting look effortless. And that's not to think of the cost of the getting trained and qualified in horticulture, the cost of the ground prep, the cost of the seeds/plants and the cost in maintaining an area.

Flowers at this time of year!? Wow.
Believe it or not, some plants do flower this time of year. Plus with the changing weather patterns, plants are getting confused and flowering now when they really shouldn't. I have seen apples, marigolds, even a Choisya in flower in the last week. Some that flower in the winter are on the link. there is nothing as splendid as winter scented flowers. www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=111

When we in the process of moving in to our latest house my 9 year old and her friend turned up with a HUGE 'bouquet' of Daffodils.
To be fair, my daughter had been raised rurally and didn't know she couldn't pick Daffs as we had millions of the bloody things on our property and my kids were always allowed to pick ours. I'd never thought to teach her as she had just never picked wild or planted flowers elsewhere.
After I had thanked the girls for the gesture I had to tell them that under no circumstances were they to pick any more as these ones were not ours to take.

I thought it was just common sense for adults? A child picking flowers from the base of a tree I could see as a lack of understanding, quite rightly corrected by the OP but the mother's wilful ignorance is just selfish and rude.

Whenever I see all the daffodils in full bloom in Spring I want to pick them. Who'd miss a few? But of course I don't because they're there for everyone to enjoy, not just me.
If they're not yours, you don't take them.

YANBU GiveMeShade

She should be teaching her child not to pick flowers without permission and she should only give permission where she knows she has permission not just assumes she has permission.

Flowers can be: rare, expensive, poisonous, someone else's, everyone else's. They are simply one of the things you dont touch unless you know you are allowed to.

I will include the flowers in own, GP's & friends gardens in this!

the daffs in particular look lovely when they come out. A few years back someone/people picked probably 70% over a few days.

Odds on these ended up for sale somewhere,

I really love wrought iron benches, when I see them in the road I always let my kids jemmy them up and take them home as a gift for grandma. Didn't think they belonged to anyone.

They don't Eggy. They grow wild in many areas. Your children and their Grandma can continue to appropriate them.