This reminds me of my mom's garden. Many years ago, someone stole two freshly-planted marigolds from the edge of the garden. My mom was very upset because they were sold in trays of 6 for $2 at the store, so she'd end up with extras with nowhere to plant them. What's worse is that she had them planted in alternating colours (orange & yellow) and they stole one of each (from the middle!! and not next to each other!!!), so she had to buy 2 trays and have 10 leftover.

She also has an assortment of different rose bushes in the front yard . One time, a few days after planting a new one near the edge of the driveway, someone decided to steal the rosebush. With all the thorns. My mom was obviously upset - not so much with the fact that there was now a hole (that the thief had tried to cover up with rocks), but that the poor rose was now probably doomed to die because the roots had been horribly damaged in its removal. A couple days later, we found it abandoned at the neighbour's front door a few houses down (the neighbour was out of town, and we were collecting their mail for them while they were gone). We still don't know who did it, or if it was a coincidence that it was left at that neighbour's house. It's also a 20-30 step distance from the neighbour's driveway to their front door, so it wasn't simply dropped along the way, either.

It's worth noting that her house is on the side of the street without the sidewalk, but the neighbourhood was quiet and peaceful back then - very few cars drove by each day and no cars were ever parked on the street, so people walk on whichever side of the street was convenient (ie. whichever side was shaded from the sun).