Hi Leigh, I'm not sure whether its 'allowed' definitively but I'm guessing that the answer would be 'No'

I think it would be deemed as stealing .The best thing to do would be to ask (the head groundsman or whoever maintains the area) and they may well be pleased to let you have a cutting.

Hope this helps, and If I'm wrong, no doubt I will be put in my place! and I will scurry back into my corner! :o)

Lol thanks booboo, thats kind of what i thought anyway just thought i wouldnt waste time trying to find someone to ask if it was ok anyway. suppose if i found some nice theyd be able to advise me too if they let me! thanks again! :o)

40 years ago Percy Thrower used to open his garden for Charity and welcome people to visit. My late mother used to go. She was very fond of taking pieces from his plants to propogate her own, even boasted about it. Then Percy announced he was not doing it anymore, because of people taking cuttings.
They thought they were the only ones. With lots of people doing it, plants were mutilated, so he knew what they had been up to.
Nowadays there are usually plants for sale at Open Gardens, maybe it helps with this problem.
So best look for them - and pay for them.

Im head gardener for the largest municiple rock garden in the Uk. I hate it if people just help themselves to cuttings etc but if they bothered asking me, i'd have no problems and would even go through the best way to propagate the plant or take the cutting.

I know the Botanical Garden in Edinburgh has threatened to prosecute people for taking cuttings. Just imagine if everyone wo visited took just one cutting...

I open my garden under the NGS scheme, and have to post 'watchers' because if people take cuttings from my plants without asking, I'd be very, very annoyed. It IS stealing, where-ever you do it.

When i open my garden i have signs up offering cuttings for a £1. I take them and either wrap in moist towel in plastic bag or actually pot them in prepared medium I have to hand.
I also have signs up stating. Taking of cuttings is not permitted, if found you will be made to weed a border.
On NGS days, i never request anything, but tell. Like unruley kids to be kept on a lead. :-)

lol 2ndhand thats a great punishment! thanks all glad i asked, never thought of it that way if everyone took one, suppose i didnt really think many people would. i think i would have asked anyway but at least i know some background now...im too nervous to ask the new neighboughs if i can take some, but worried now the house is being rented a lot of the flowers wont make it another year! hope im wrong, even better if they turn out to love gardening!

A lot of people are not interested enough to take cuttings home from any garden. By the time you got a them home they would be useless. Anyone who goes prepared to steal cuttings with scissors and plastic bags etc is usually a keen but mean and thoughtless gardener.

Confession -I once took a pup from a spider plant in the glasshouse of one of Sheffield's parks. More than 50 years on I still have it and still feel guilty!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOoooh i'm mean, I always have a sharp thumbnail and a self seal placky bag. But never to private gardens or land.

I think I would be to scared of being caught to do it. I remember as a small child being caught by the park keeper when writing my initials in the shelter (there was already so much grafitti it was hard to find room) I still go cold with the shame of it and that was some 50 odd years ago

I had a bad experience at Wisley once many years ago. We had interupted a journey home off the ferry from France and a cake and cuppa visit to friends. I felt sick. So we dived into Wisley. I was closely inspecting an interesting seed head....thinking I will throw up any minute, away from people, as there was a loo Q. This voice boomed behind me. 'Leave that plant alone'. I turned round...... and threw up on his wellies. At Dixter I asked a lady gardener if I could take some Dierama seedling growing in the pathway....she got them out for me.

yeah i think itd be ok to take if theyre at the side of the road or somewhere unsightly that no one really sees-its adopting them isnt it! right ill leave the parks be then, unless i see something i really cant resist then id have to ask :)

Poor Dorjac, that's the sort of experience you can never forget isn't it? And I don't suppose the owner of the wellies will either...

lol dorjac! hope you get over it soon :-)

It was a loooong time ago. We had been unwell on holiday in France and been searched at customs on return for daring to use the green channel....threw up there as well...fined for having one too many bottles of booze....fled to the loo in the middle of questioning.....yeah it was a really good day!!!!!!! I wouldn't go near Wisley for years after that till I went on a botanical art course.

Horrible!