PAGE 6B Plant Theft: Ripped Off, Roots And...

BY LINDA WUEBBEN

We have been getting wonder-ful rains over here in northeastNebraska in the past coupleweeks. The welcome moisture hasperked up the dwellers, as well asall the crops and gardens. And wehave not had to deal with hail —yet.

My garden is finally looking likeit has a future. I can’t really call itmy garden anymore because myhubby has really taken an interestin it since I have many irons in thefire this year. He’s my tiller-manbecause sometimes that beast of amachine wears me out.

The day lilies are breaking outin full force, with early summerblooms filling landscaping areas.When the heat finally hits, eventhe best of floral designs droopand look frazzled.

My garden is interspersed withflowers, like always. I got a latestart on planting, but glad bulbsare popping up straight and tall. Ican’t wait for their blooms to fill avase on my dining table.

At each of the first six rows, I

tried some dif-ferent varietiesof sunflowers.These seeds arein shades of red,and maybesome orange.They will nottower as high asthe yellow sun-flowers thatgrew in my gar-den last yearwhen the seed

blew out of my bird feeder.Hopefully by the first weekend ofSeptember, they may decorate awedding party.

I actually have an ulteriormotive for the tall flowers. I amplanning the rehearsal party formy son’s wedding here in ourhome. So, just in case my garden isnot weeded completely from endto end, this small barricade willprovide a pleasant view instead ofweeds.

I finally put my foot down lastweek and told myself I had enoughpotted flowers. With three pots onthe front deck and seven out the

patio door, watering them is likerunning a race. Sometimes I forgetthe daily routine and then I’m pan-icked for fear they are dying. WhenI had picked up a few extra plantsthe last week of May and found Ineeded to buy a couple more pots,I knew that was enough.

With the flowering bed in frontof my house, under my front deck,around the east side and along thenorth deck, I have enough to do.My husband does not go there.Those areas are all my own andabout mid-July, I’m wondering justhow far over the bend I have gone.You know, being crazy about flow-ers.

I come by it naturally. I remem-ber many days my mom putteringin her flowers around the housewhile dad checked out how thegarden was growing or mowed thelawn. It must be in my blood.

So before the dog days of Julyhit the area, it is time for a gardenparty. The Crofton Senior Center is

planning their annual Lawn &Garden Party for Saturday, June19. The Crofton seniors still have afew tricks up their sleeve.

Of course, like other years, thedetails can’t be revealed about thespectacular gardens and lawns ondisplay this year but a little birdiehas given me a small heads-up andI can safely say, you won’t be dis-appointed. As always, the colorfulfundraiser is one of the mainmoney-makers for the CroftonSenior Citizens Center. Its mem-bers are very grateful for thosegardeners who willingly inviteflower lovers from the area to viewtheir hard work and success inmaintaining very lovely and pleas-ing vistas around their home.

So, take a morning off, help alocal non-profit bring in some cashand along the way, you may garnersome good gardening tips younever thought of. It’s all aboutsharing thoughts and ideas aboutprojects loved by many.

Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan ■ Saturday, June 12, 2010PAGE 6B www.yankton.net

HOMEGARDEN

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BY NARA SCHOENBERG© 2010, Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — MaryAnneSpinner was standing on thegarage-top deck of her LincolnPark home when she saw twomen with shopping carts makingtheir way through the alleybelow.

At first, she was puzzled: Whywere their carts lined with littlegreen plants?

Then she saw one of the menreach up into her neighbor’s win-dow box, casually scoop up apansy plant, roots and all, anddeposit it in the cart. A secondpansy plant met the same fate.

“Stop!” Spinner yelled. Themen just shrugged and pickedup their pace, disappearingaround a corner with their leafyloot.

“It was so brazen,” Spinnersays. “It was broad daylight — 2o’clock in the afternoon. And itwas a busy alley; cars comethrough there all the time.”

Ah, spring. We’re in thatremarkable season when birdssing, sprinklers splash andplants walk.

No one tracks how manyflowers, bushes and trees aredug out of the ground each yearby fly-by-night landscapers, conartists looking to make a fastbuck and home gardeners toolazy or stingy to pony up fortheir own plants.

But at Chicago-area green-houses and garden centers,plant people tell of numerousplant theft incidents, somestrange (The Pilfered Palm Tree),some silly (The Black MarketPetunias) and some just plainsad.

“It’s sort of like stealingcandy from a baby, or picking ona little old lady or someonewho’s disabled,” Spinner says ofplant pilfering.

“Steal hubcaps (if you haveto), you know? But leave flowersalone.”

Familiar flowers such as redgeraniums are popular targets, asare annuals in full flower andpricey ornamental grasses andCanna lilies. But thieves have alsobeen known to steal grass (in theform of newly planted sod) rightoff the ground and uproot entiretrees.

Connie Rivera, owner of CityEscape garden center, says shewas hired by a dentist nearChicago’s Ukrainian Village to fillthe planters outside his office.Thieves struck the first night, tak-ing bulbs, and continued theirraids until the dentist gave up onflowers altogether.

“He said, ‘They’re too beauti-ful’” to last, Rivera says. “All hedid was put in shrubs. There’sno color there anymore.”

Not all thefts leave a lastingvisual legacy, but gardeners calleven the smallest strike a blowagainst civic spirit and naturalbeauty.

Police departments don’tcompile statistics on plantthefts, and Adam Schwerner,director of natural resources forChicago Park District, says thatraids on city parks are uncom-mon.

“There have been some timeswhen we’ve come up missingwith annuals. Sometimes in oursummer installations we willmiss some palm trees,” he says.

“We lost a palm tree probablyfour years ago in front of LincolnPark Conservatory — a verynice palm tree, and that wasgone. But, in the main, when wetake care of things well, peoplerespect it.”

Others suspect sporadic butnumerous thefts in a wide rangeof gardens, parks and publicplaces.

“I think it’s pretty common,”says Rivera, who planted 10,000tulips on streets bordering hergarden center this spring, 100 ofwhich were stolen right out ofthe ground.

“They didn’t even cherry-pick— take one here and one thereso we wouldn’t see it,” she saysof the bulb bandits. “They justtook (a whole section) out.”

Rivera’s garden center is in astruggling neighborhood, but shehad a similar experience five orsix years ago in leafy Lakeview,when a large container of plantswas taken from her front porch.

Spinner, a University ofIllinois Extension master garden-er who lives in one of the prici-est sections of the city, says shehas experienced about fivethefts in the last eight years,including a nearly 3-foot rose ofSharon bush that lasted lessthan a day.

“We had someone actuallyclimb over our fence once, andwe have a wrought-iron gate that

has those really pointy fleur-de-lis things on it that look likeswords,” she says. “I don’t knowhow they do it.”

Despite their tendency toinspire “What have we come to?”diatribes, plant thefts have beena fact of life in American citiesfor generations, with recentreports spanning the nation andincluding urban areas and leafysuburbs.

A Chicago Daily Tribune arti-cle from June 1876 bemoaned acrime wave at a city park: “Rareplants and flowers were ruthless-ly dug up from the hot-beds andother places, and the old garden-er grew greatly annoyed, andscarcely knew how to catch thethieves,” the paper reported.Even after a police stakeout, 10“splendid geraniums” went miss-ing.

In 1901, Hyde Park was up inarms over bandits who snippedblooms from bushes, and in 1909six newly planted trees were ille-gally “wrenched from the soil”near Armour School. “People ofthe neighborhood are incensedover the latest depredation,” theDaily Tribune reported.

Today’s suspects range fromlittle kids bringing flowers hometo Mom to unscrupulous land-scapers with pickup trucks andburly crews.

When it comes to small theftsfrom city parks, Schwernerpoints the finger at greedy gar-deners.

“It’s for their yards,” he says.“I’ve been here since 1996, andone or two times we’ve had sto-

ries of people being found by thepolice selling plants that havebeen removed from (city) gar-dens, but that’s very unusual.”

Ward Wilson, a landscapearchitect at Hoy Landscaping inMelrose Park, says other plantsfall victim to a slightly moresophisticated brand of criminal.

“Some of them get ripped off,and they go to the flea markets,and people resell them. Thathappened to me,” he says.

“I had six 8-inch pots of petu-nias on my front porch steps formaybe a couple of months andall of a sudden they were justgone one morning. And what I’mtold is, you go to the flea mar-kets and see just that kind ofthing for sale at 5 bucks a pop —even though I probably paid$20.”

Wilson never recovered hispetunias, but he says his compa-ny did track down some stolen$350 leaf blowers.

When it comes to the biggerheists, plant people suspect fly-by-night landscapers, who may bedriven to crime by poor planning,shaky finances or a combinationof the two.

“They did steal trees,” saysChristy Webber, owner of ChristyWebber Landscapes, of thethieves who struck her projectat Kennedy-King College. “Theystole, like, four (big) trees. It’sgot to be a landscaper with agroup of people. If people want,they can get enough guys to dojust about anything.”

Some plants are more popu-lar with thieves than others.

Webber says that thieves work-ing for unethical landscaperslove gallon-size ornamentalgrasses and Canna liliesbecause they’re showy andpricey.

“We have trouble with gerani-ums,” says Schwerner of theChicago Park District.“Geraniums tend to be a likedthing, I think because they’refamiliar.”

Flowers, he says, do betterwhen they’re planted before theybloom. By the time plants growflowers and become attractive tothieves, their roots are alreadydeep and they’re difficult toremove.

Location matters as well.Thieves generally steer clear ofChicago’s iconic tulip display onthe Magnificent Mile median,probably because of the constantstream of potential witnesses,both pedestrian and vehicular.They favor areas that are slightlymore secluded, or ones that clearout after dark.

And then there’s packaging.Thieves have shown markedenthusiasm for the containergardening trend, in whichplants are grown in large pots,some of them ceramic or castiron, all of them relativelyportable.

“We have customers thatcome in and they’ll do a beauti-ful container — and the contain-er walks,” says Rivera, who losther own container in Lakeviewto thieves.

“It was huge,” she says of thecontainer. “It had to take three

to four guys to move it. It wasthere for years, and all of a sud-den one night it disappeared.Literally up the steps, right atmy front door. It could have setmy alarm off.”

Gardeners say they’ve seenplants secured with chains andbicycle locks and containersbolted or cemented to theground.

But perhaps the most com-mon response to flower thievesis the simple act of replanting.

Victims sigh and grumble andcomplain to their friends. Andthen they go to work with shov-els and seeds.

Rivera, who vows that tulipswill rise again in the strippedbed outside her garden center, isa case in point.

“I love the tulips; it’s who weare,” she says. “I’m not going tostop planting because someonedecides to help themselves to afew. I can’t do that.”

———NOTABLE PLANT HEISTS

In 2006, newly installed secu-rity cameras outside the MorrisCounty Courthouse inMorristown, N.J., showed awoman making off with plants ontwo separate occasions. The 35-year-old suspect was out walkingher dog when she allegedlyuprooted and absconded with anornamental grass. On anotheroccasion, surveillance imagesshowed the suspect pulling up ahosta plant.

When Hurricane Francesripped into Florida’s southeast-ern coast in 2004, thievesbroke into the evacuatedFairchild Tropical BotanicGarden and stole 32 endan-gered palmlike cycads with ablack market value of $50,000to $70,000.

“Whoever stole those plantsknew exactly what they weredoing,” said Tom Broome, presi-dent of the Cycad Society andowner of the Cycad Jungle, anursery in Polk City, Fla.,“because there’s a lot of plantsaround there they could havestolen.”

In 2000 and 2001, thousandsof dollars worth of indoorplants went missing fromMinneapolis office buildings,according to the Star Tribunenewspaper. Armed with largeplastic bags and wire cutters,the suspects hit lobbies andskyways, making off with asnake plant, a Chinese ever-green, bromeliads and marblepothos. The Star Tribunereported that one suspect fledthe scene, trailing moss andbark.

In 1999, The Washington Postreported multiple flower theftsfrom a single block in theembassy-studded Dupont Circleneighborhood. Residents wererobbed of their begonias andthen robbed again, with somelosing $300 in flowers betweenMarch and October. Police exam-ined a videotape of a heist andheld a two-week stakeout on theblock, using plants donated by asympathetic florist, but to noavail.

Plant Theft: Ripped Off, Roots And All

CHRIS SALATA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/MCTMaryAnne Spinner poses for a portrait in the backyard of her Lincoln Park apartment, May 1, 2010, in Chicago, Illinois. Spinner was stand-ing on the garage-top deck of her home when she saw two men use a shopping cart to tote pansies they had taken from a nearby win-dow box.

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WEED PATCH:

Crofton Garden Party To Be June 19

LindaWuebben