Need some social/neighbor advice from my tortoise peeps.

[queen koopa]

So there is a home in my neighborhood that has a great spineless cactus bordering their property wall. I would like to contact them to see if I could get a few pads to plant at my house. Do you guys think it’s a bad time to ask them? I mean with the social distancing going on? I wanted to put a note in their mailbox....

 

[jsheffield]

I bet you could find them on FB or find their phone number online, and get in touch with them that way if you feel odd about leaving a note in their mailbox.

If you can, I'd include a picture of your tort to personalize the request, so they're not helping a stranger, but helping a tortoise.

Jamie

 

[Yvonne G]

So there is a home in my neighborhood that has a great spineless cactus bordering their property wall. I would like to contact them to see if I could get a few pads to plant at my house. Do you guys think it’s a bad time to ask them? I mean with the social distancing going on? I wanted to put a note in their mailbox....

Sign up for the Nextdoor app and take a look under the 'members' tab to see if your neighbor is a member. Then you can send them a private message explaining what you want.

It has been my experience that most people are more than willing to share their plants with folks.

 

[Tom]

I'd pass by and try to catch them outside. Might take a few tries, but you'll eventually see them.

I've knocked on doors many times. I work in the movie biz, and we have film locations literally all over the world. I see tortoise food EVERYWHERE. If we are filming in a neighborhood and I see a new type of spineless opuntia that I don't already have, I'll knock on the door and ask them if I can buy a few pads of their super cool cactus to re-plant. Every time, they have been flattered that I like their plant, refused the money, and invited me to hack away. Sometimes they come outside with me and are all: "Here. Take a bunch more." I've met some very nice people, and no one has been weird about it yet. I suppose how you approach them matters, but this has always worked for me.

 

[jsheffield]

Sign up for the Nextdoor app and take a look under the 'members' tab to see if your neighbor is a member. Then you can send them a private message explaining what you want.

It has been my experience that most people are more than willing to share their plants with folks.

My uncle lived in DC and had bamboo growing in his backyard... keepers from the National Zoo got in touch with him when pandas first came to live at the zoo and he was so proud, so ecstatic, to help feed the pandas that it was often the first thing he said to people when meeting them, and came up in conversations a lot.

Jamie