'AITA for asking an old woman not to pick our lavender as she walks past our house?'

"AITA for asking an old woman not to pick our lavender as she walks past our house?"

There’s an old woman that walks by our house with her grandchildren. We don’t have a fence between our plants and the pedestrian path. The woman picks our lavender and then encourages her grandchildren to pick the lavender too. I had enough today and I went out and said in a calm tone of voice, ‘Sorry would you mind not pulling our lavender out?’

She then said, ‘Are you serious? It doesn’t harm the plant.’

I replied ‘that’s all well and good, but well, it’s just disrespectful as it’s our property.’

She then said, ‘Well I have some advice for you — if you had cut it back last year, it would have grown better, you haven’t done that and it hasn’t grown well at all’ and then made a cheeky smirk and walked on.

I was sort of flummoxed at that reply and closed the door. I have social anxiety and don’t like confrontation. I wish I said more. Makes me so angry that she feels she has the right to do that. She may be right in that it doesn’t harm the plant, but it’s just the principle of it. And I can’t get over her rude reply about how we aren’t growing it correctly.

Can hardly focus on my work, I’m just pacing about with irritation 😂

Edit: I'll add that it took a year and half of it happening a few times a week to get to the point where I said something.

Commenters had a lot to say in response.

Desolate-Dreamland wrote:

NTA. It is your property. She knows she was wrong and that's why she tried (and succeeded) to get under your skin with her comment. But I will add that this post made me self reflect.

I think a lot of us with social anxiety who get worked up after bad interactions with others really need to learn to stand up for ourselves. I know it's hard, I'm in the same boat. But if I did that more, I'd have a lot less hours spent pacing around angrily thinking up comebacks to people who are d-cks.

pumpkinpowerful3292 wrote:

NTA - Your property and she was trespassing and causing damage to your lavender. You were right to address her that way. Doesn't matter if your, in her opinion if you were growing them properly it is yours to do with as you please. The entitlement that some people have is really getting out of hand and they need to be called out for it. And you did just that.

Maximum-Swan-1009 wrote:

Is she picking a sprig or pulling it out? If she is picking off just a bit to enjoy the scent, I would let it pass. It won't hurt the plant or destroy it's beauty. And don't forget to cut it back.

The best time to prune lavender is usually immediately after the plant stops flowering, usually in late summer to early fall. Don’t prune lavender too late in the season, as plants pruned right before frost are most susceptible to cold damage.

OP responded:

Thanks for the reply and advice regarding the pruning. I think it's the lack of respect for property and lack of apology when asked to stop that is frustrating me, rather than the specifics of the action.

Emotional-Hair-1607 wrote:

My friend has an unique tree that is hard to grow in our zone. It has pretty flowers and every spring people come into their yard to pick them. Whenever she tells people to stop, they counter with "it's just one flower." Her response is "You're the 10th person today to pick "just one flower" so please don't." Most people get it.

momthom427 wrote:

I live in a city and most of the rowhouses have small front gardens that border the sidewalk. Mine is a brick flowerbed about 1.5 feet tall. It was a mess when I bought my house, but I cleaned it all out, planted hydrangeas and other things. Now a few years later, the hydrangeas are gorgeous and have grown together beautifully. People stop and take photos of them.

Earlier in the summer, I found a lady on the sidewalk just clipping away my beautiful blooms. I said ma’am, those are not yours, please stay out of my garden. She looked baffled. “They’re right here on the sidewalk!” In an elevated bed, in front of my house, and what would be left if the hundreds of others who walk by each day all cut themselves a bouquet?

Glanced4 wrote:

NTA - If there are a lot of flowers and they are pushing to the sidewalk...yeah, whatever. Not something I'd do, but not the end of the world either, especially with a common, easily propagating flower. But if you get caught, you get caught.

You don't smirk. You don't sass. You don't huff or bluster. You just apologize, wave, and say that your flowers are so pretty. And then you wave and say "no worries" and you go about living in a civilized society. Definitely NTA.

Wastelandmama wrote:

NTA. My grandma had a yard full of beautiful plants. She had my granddad specifically choose a corner lot for the extra yard space. Loads of her plants were nearly 100yrs old, passed down from her mother. Every dang year she'd get people trying to poach her lilacs or tea roses or irises.

She also had a pawpaw in the side yard that she was more than happy to share the fruit of (its good for about 5 minutes before it starts to rot, so when it comes in, you gotta harvest the whole tree & eat it fast), but she was not happy to go out there & find it picked bare without her permission. She tried signs. She tried talking. It never worked.

So finally she gave up & just started hosing people down. 🤣 She’d blast them with the hose & when they'd freak out, she’d just spray them again. She said some people are just too thoughtless & rude to reason with, so you treat them like the pests they are. 🤷‍♀️

The next year, her yard went unmolested. 👍 Imagine that.