RIP
<img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/205/500670170_7570f44e8c.jpg">
This evening, the former owner of our plot (from 2 years ago) came by, crazed, and leveled the entire thing. Gone. Kaput. Complete, bare, brown earth, with a pile of carnage in the corner. The garden manager (who lives next door) saw him watering the ground after he was finished, and called him at home. He started yelling about how it was HIS plot, how could it be taken away! He wanted to plant tomatoes this year!
Police reports were filed, detectives will contact us, but is it likely anything will happen? It certainly won't bring the garden back.
The saddest part-- he lives on our street.
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Unlike CC, I'd think this person needs help, not jail time.
What is the answer, though?
a. Is he going to come back and mow down the plants that we spent a couple hours salvaging from the pile he left last night and this morning?
b. Are any of the plants that we salvaged going to survive? (we found some of them intact)
c. Can we get him to pay us back for the plants that were damaged
d. Can we get him to not come back by getting the police involved.
e. Can I get an article in the Eastie Times about it that will sufficiently humiliate him to make up for it?
The garden manager is going to have him officially banned from the garden, and not allowed to have a plot anywhere else.
There are many things that suck about this situation, but mostly I'm just VERY ANGRY because Chippy loved those plants (especially his Grammy's primroses) nearly as much as he loves Lila (our cat).
As we were walking home from the garden last night, I said to G lib, "It's not nearly as bad as if Lila were to die. It's much, much worse than for my car to be stolen, though."
I still think you should have a supplemental garden on your roof. There's a whole green roof movement.
Roses, primroses, foxgloves, chrysanthemums, geraniums, rose campions, columbines, pulmonaria, phlox, cannas, gladioluses, Dutch irises, bearded irises, poppies, delphiniums, snapdragons, zinnias, asters, bachelor's buttons, tiger lilies, hybrid lilies, bleeding hearts, daylilies, grape hyacinths, daffodils, crocuses, tulips, decorative alliums, garlic, onions, chives, garlic chives, daisies, peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, sage, oregano, creeping thyme, lavender, dill, cilantro, lettuce, spinach, peas, tomatoes, peppers.
I may be forgetting a few.
The organization that owns the garden also sent him a letter saying that he was banned from the garden and will be arrested if he tries to come in again.
JBCardinale was right in thinking that it's not a good idea to antagonize him-- what would be the use? And the risk would probably would be even worse. <a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/282420/burning_cat_thrown_through_window_in.html"> (The last thing we want is him to light Lila [our cat] on fire and throw her into our apartment window!)</a>*
Our hope is that he shows up for this hearing and we all agree that won't come back, and that he gives us a little bit of scratch.
*From the article: "Notoriously brutal MS-13 gang" might be a little bit of an overstatement.
They caught the person who did it. I don't think there are a lot of Luigis in MS-13. Often media speculation is completely wrong.
We had our meeting with the guy and the East Boston clerk of the court this morning. Apparently the guy is a big man around Eastie, and the whole time we were waiting for our hearing to begin, all sorts of cops kept coming by and giving him a bro hug.
We went into the meeting and said our piece. He started with a litany of "You (the garden manager) never wanted me in the garden! You tried to get rid of me since you started managing the garden!" and something like "The by-laws of the garden state that to kick someone out, you have to have a meeting with the main organization, and you violated the by-laws!" My thought is that he was either playing the race or the townie card, I'm not sure which one it was. The clerk of the court reminded him that he hadn't contacted the garden manager for two years, and he could have called him to explain the situation.
He said that his wife had been sick for about a year, and had recently just gotten out of the hospital. When she got out, she told him that she wanted to re-plant their garden, and would he just prepare it for them? So he toddled off to the garden and pulled out all of the 'weeds' that were there, so that he could plant his tomatoes.
I encourage you to look at the photo at the top of this page at this time. Granted, most of the tulips had passed, but we had flowering poppies, bearded irises, and an obviously very well tended garden.
In the end, he wrote us a check for three hundred smackaroos (a compromise, down from chippy's low estimate of $400ish), and said that he wouldn't come back, which was exactly what we wanted.
I could post for another page or two about how I'm feeling about the whole thing, but the main point is that I'm still angry, but at least it's f*cking over. (unless his check bounces, knock on wood!)
People suck sometimes.
A few of the mangled lilies that we replanted have recovered enough to flower, and they're very pretty. Actually, seeing anything at all come out of the devastation makes me feel good.
And we've been given or offered plants by a lot of compassionate friends and fellow gardeners: pepper seedlings from Laurie, collard greens from Dominic, a hollyhock from Austin, and open-ended offers of plants from Webb and from the eccentric guy with the plot in the corner.
It's hard to stay bitter.