Callous thieves steal dozens of new flowers from man’s garden
By Kirra Livingstone
A MAN who had just planted a ‘little haven’ he hoped to enjoy while contending with a serious medical condition has had the entire garden ripped out and stolen by unscrupulous thieves.
Paul Vella and a friend had put the finishing touches on his Landsborough garden on June 29, before he woke up the next day to find hundreds of dollars worth of plants had been dug up and removed.
“I’m so depressed that this has happened,” Paul said.
“Someone must have come at night, pinched the flowers, and just pulled them straight out of the dirt.
“There’s an old saying, ‘Where have all the flowers gone?’ Well that’s a great question.
“I’d love to know myself.”
The Landsborough man said one of his last wishes was to have a beautiful garden.
His friend, Anna, said the pair had planted about 30 flowers, some quite rare, and 20 had been stolen.
Although neither Paul or Anna have reported the crime to the police, Paul immediately installed a bright sensor light and security camera to deter other would-be thieves.
“We lost about $500 worth of flowers, soil, fertiliser from the theft, and of course Anna’s time in helping me by planting the flowers,” Paul said.
“Anyone who walks along this path at night will trigger the lights, which will be very bright. We are hoping it will scare people off.
“We’ve got a security camera installed too, and we’ve got a sign up as well that says, ‘Smile, you’re on camera,’ which could be a deterrent as well.”
Paul said that although he plans to get Anna to help him plant more flowers, he is very upset by the situation.
“I just wanted to make my garden look nice, you know. I had a big stump removed from there so we could make more room for the plants and flowers.
“I just think it’s weak that someone would want to pinch flowers of all things, and it is so special to me. I wanted to get the place looking nice.”
Anna added it was a low act. “The plants looked stunning before, and it was really hard to get some of the plants that we did. We are just really disappointed,” she said.
“It was a pretty low thing to do to someone, especially a sick man. We don’t know if they’ve pulled them out and thrown them, or done it and planted them.
“Maybe they put a garage sale on, put them in pots and sell them, I don’t know.”
The pair added that one of Paul’s neighbours down the street had also had some flowers and plants stolen from their garden weeks prior.
Paul didn’t even get a chance to take pictures of his newly beautified garden, because they wanted to wait for the flowers to grow more before taking a photo. The only flowers the green-thumb thieves didn’t manage to steal were Paul’s roses, which they planted a week before.
Anna, who contacted GC&M News about this disgusting act, warned the thieves that karma works in mysterious ways.
kirra@gcnews.com.au
