This really p***** me off

I was garden touring this past week and watched two women pick a bouquet of roses each from a rose in a public park.

It wasn't a single rose - it wasn't a spent blossom or two. Nope, they picked the rose and buds right off the big bush. And enough of them to handsomely populate a vase each.

What's the deal here? Ignorance? Rudeness? Lack of appreciation that this is a "public" space and not one's personal garden.

This is one of the reasons that serious public gardens are dying on this continent. You simply can't keep flowers in them without them disappearing. Unless we put our plants behind walls and keys with security, the flowers disappear. Any public garden curator will tell you amazing stories of plants lasting 24 hours (if that) before somebody digs them up leaving behind the planting holes and precious little else - not even the tags. I remember giving some rock garden plants to a public garden and being told they hadn't even managed to last the day before someone walked away with them. Only donated twice - the first time and the last.

But this level of rudeness - they even vamped for the camera when they realized I was taking their picture - just p****** me off.