In the past three years, Yun estimates his Fallbrook, Calif. nursery has been pilfered at least 10 times at a loss of thousands of dollars each. In each incident, bandits skipped the smaller plants and grabbed the palm trees. Chubby palms, lean palms, ponytail palms, triangle-shaped palms, classic royal palms.

Increasingly, the thefts of the expensive palm trees are giving nursery owners, landscape contractors and property owners more than headaches. Palm thefts have also been reported at construction sites and even from completed landscapes.

Property owners have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and are resorting to all measures of security. Some have installed barbed wire, electronic sensors, high-tech security cameras, dogs, lighting, unfriendly signs and hidden, rock-filled trenches that restrict vehicles’ movement.

Police and growers only can speculate about the thieves and their buyers.

“It could be other nurseries, employees, landscape contractors, drug addicts. It could be your brother,” said Jennifer Gaggero, president of The Good Earth Nursery in Fallbrook, which has been targeted numerous times.

Some of the most commonly stolen trees are cycads, known as sago palms though technically they are not palm trees, Silva said. Others include queen and king palms because they are common and easy to disguise once they are planted in gardens.

Even in the ground the trees are not safe, Silva said, recalling an instance when thieves used a crane to lift a 40-foot tree from a home while its residents were on vacation.

“They loaded it on the back of a flatbed,” Silva said, but neighbors didn’t suspect theft in broad daylight.

“If you see a truck in the middle of the night with people moving palm trees, call the police, take down the license plate,” Gaggero said. “It’s not normal. Most landscapers don’t get up at 2 or 3 in the morning to do a job.”