3 crazy gardening stories from last month.

OK, so your hydrangeas are wilting and next door’s dog has destroyed your vegetable garden. At least you’re not facing any of these problems with your garden:

Serial hedge thieves strike

Two separate households in the South of England were the victims of the same bizarre horticultural crime at the end of last month, when their garden hedges were dug up and stolen overnight. Anthony and Daphne Hawley from Copthorne, West Sussex woke up on the 25th August to discover their 30ft laurel hedge had completely vanished from their garden.

“We had about 25 laurels at the front of our garden…about six foot high. We woke up and everything was just gone. It must have happened overnight.”
“You can see quite clearly where they have been dug up and you can also see tyre tracks on the road outside. Whoever it was must have needed a large truck, because 25 laurels certainly aren’t small things.”

The Hawley’s had CCTV cameras, but failed to get any footage of the crime in action. The loss of their laurels came only 5 days after another case in Kent where Peter and Julie Vine’s 127 shrubs, that made up a border around their front garden to keep out traffic noise from the A227, were similarly stolen in the middle of the night.

“You’ve got to pull them out, load them on to the back of something, and I have to ask what is the point of doing something like that?”

The police are looking in to each case, but are so far stumped.

Pensioner prisoned for growing a garden

A Preston pensioner has been dealt a six month suspended prison sentence for planting a community garden without permission in front of his block of flats. Jam Imani Rad – a retired teacher – spent £5000 on creating an elaborate garden space complete with trees, statues, trellises and water features on the communal land, but did not get approval from the Community Gateway Housing Association.

After being warned that his garden was in violation of his tenancy agreement, and was a health and safety risk in a communal area, the Mr Rad was taken to court, where a judge sided with the CGA.

Despite a petition featuring over 6000 signatures, the garden is currently in the process of being dismantled Mr Rad is now facing eviction as well as a six month prison sentence.

Live grenade planted in garden

Digging up a garden often unearths some mysterious relics of recent history: the shrapnel of old tapes, undeveloped rolls of film from a disposable camera, the bones of once beloved pets. But fortunately very few gardeners discover a relic as dangerous as the one found by residents of a South London home on the 22nd August. A live grenade was uncovered amongst the flowerbeds, buried deep under the roots of the plants, waiting for a misplaced strike from a fork or spade to blast a crater in the garden.

Fortunately the grenade didn’t go off when it was revealed by the terror-stricken gardener, who immediately called the police to deal with it. A specialist bomb disposal team removed the device and set it off in a controlled explosion at a safe location.

 

Heard any other gardening related crazy news stories? Let us know!