Tulips are no longer being planted at Mona Vale in Christchurch because they were disappearing almost overnight. File picture. Photo: RNZ/Carol Stiles
Flowers in public gardens are for everyone to enjoy and picking them just spoils it for others, the Christchurch Botanical Gardens director says.
It follows some brazen thefts in the Garden City, of not just flowers but entire plants. In fact, they have even decided to no longer plant tulips in one display because they are disappearing almost overnight.
The Heritage Rose Garden in Christchurch Botanical Gardens. Photo: 123RF
Christchurch Botanical Gardens director Wolfgang Bopp told Checkpoint the flowers and plants are for everyone to enjoy.
"The idea is you enjoy them; you leave them alone. You leave the place as you find it. If you pick a flower today, I can't enjoy it tomorrow," he said.
"If you pick it at 12pm, nobody can see it for the afternoon. The idea is we can all enjoy it across the city. That's what they're intended for."
An argument that comes up regularly is just picking one flower such as a daffodil will not make a difference, he said.
Should people be allowed to pick flowers in public parks?
"You then just have to think if everybody in the city did that it would be 100,000, 200,000 to 300,000 fewer flowers of those daffodils," he said.
"You want to enjoy them. These days there's probably very little that is nicer than walking through a beautiful daffodil meadow, in springtime, whether that's within Christchurch or whether that's in other cities or in other gardens."
Bopp said because the botanical gardens had thousands of daffodils, they did not usually count them - but they did notice when a large amount was missing.
"We do notice it now and then. But then again, in other cases it gets quiet."
They had not noticed a large number of plants taken since the beginning of the year, he said.
"There was some publicity that went out in support of look, enjoy these plants, don't take them away because they're there for the public to enjoy," he said.
Bopp said the thefts happened occasionally "and you just emphasise when you see it, everybody wants to enjoy them".
He said when plants were taken, sometimes it cost only a few dollars, but for plants in botanic collections there was a higher cost, as the plants were harder to come by.
"It's not necessarily the same as going to a garden centre or a nursery and saying 'hey, I'd like to buy another tray of petunias'. Sometimes it might have taken us three, four, five or even six years to get the plant to the size that we have it and there is no easy supply," he said.
The Mona Vale Garden Park in Christchurch (file picture). Photo: Supplied / Christchurch Council
He said in Mona Vale, they had stopped planting tulips because they were targeted.
"We've had a couple of years now where unfortunately somebody decided they needed them more urgently than the public. It looked like they probably went through picking bucket loads and so this spring, some of these beds just don't have tulips in them," he said.
It was hard to speculate whether it was a commercial operation or for personal pleasure, he said.
"One day they were there the next day they weren't, but we don't know who's taking them and we don't know for what purpose," he said.
They currently have security around, particularly around targeted areas.
"We do have some security around but to be honest it's trying to get enough evidence and very often at night, it's quite difficult. Nowadays, when you wear masks for instance, it's then harder to identify people."