A war over flower ownership has been dubbed the "most British thing ever", play out as it did entirely in post-it notes and typed notices. The note war went viral on Twitter after Rachel Thompson, a resident of Dalyell Road in London, spotted a simple appeal stuck to a tree on her street. The note, pinned above a flowering lupin, simply read: "Please don't pick my flowers. Thank you."
Now while this may seem like an innocent, even rational, request, residents of the street did not seem to think so.
According to Mashable, by Saturday afternoon, soon after the note first appeared, the tree had been taken over by other handwritten notes.
"In an area massively affected by gentrification, it's sad to see people claiming ownership of even the flowers," read the first note, affixed below the original.
"Flowers on the public pavement are owned by all the community, not just the house they happen to fall in front of," read another below it.
People on my street are having an almighty row over who owns some flowers. There have been no raised voices, just handwritten notes placed inside plastic wallets and pinned to a post. pic.twitter.com/2sSRMkpUtr
— Rachel Thompson (@RVT9) May 26, 2019
To these detractors, the original poster had responded with another handwritten note. This one read: "Are you serious? This is not about ownership or gentrification, this is about someone trying to make the street a nicer place for everyone by planting flowers and people stealing them and stamping on them. How can you try and justify that?"
It all began a few days ago when someone put up a note saying “please don't pick my flowers” next to a lupin. A few days later, I see a literal war of words has begun. pic.twitter.com/8srhAOG4np
— Rachel Thompson (@RVT9) May 26, 2019
The literal war of words went on when the original note-poster dug up her flowers and took them elsewhere, leaving only a typed notice in their place.
"The council do not pay anything towards planting or watering nor do they provide any maintenance," read the typed page. "These flowers did not grow wild and were here because they were planted, watered, maintained and replaced by local residents."
It also called out two notes for not being "helpful".
Sorry to report that the debacle has ended with the original note-poster digging up the flowers to take them “elsewhere” pic.twitter.com/tB0b50bABL
— Rachel Thompson (@RVT9) May 26, 2019
To this, too, were two other responses.
The first, a handwritten note in green ink, read: "Helpful to know that the flowers were part of a community project. However, if that is the case it was very misleading to refer to them as 'my' flowers. What a shame that you have taken it upon yourself to dig up the community flowers."
And just below it, another post-it note ended the spat on a sour note: "Love, you've got plenty of spare time on your hands. Why don't you plant some flowers? 'Mine' are going elsewhere."
The war over flower ownership has gone viral on Twitter, collecting thousands of 'likes' and 'retweets'. It also has people taking sides:
I'm waiting for Season 2...🍿🍿🍿
— PencilArtistryByKat (@pencilartbykat) May 26, 2019
This is the most British thing I've ever seen. Mainly because of the plastic sleeves ☔️
— Crystal (@Crystal_belle) May 26, 2019
Perhaps there should have been a small sign put up that indicated that the plants were maintained by a community member.
— Steve Mule (@mulesee) May 27, 2019
What do you think of this whole exchange? Let us know using the comments section below.
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