To the lady in the boxy white SUV type vehicle: I live on Mission Avenue, across the street from the Public Garden along Phase Two of the Founders' Walk. Recently you and your mother parked your car in front of my house and proceeded to harvest the ornamental rhubarb planted along the garden's pathway.
Two days later, you came solo and again stripped the stems of another half-dozen or more rhubarb stalks, discarding the leaves in the garden. I asked you what you were doing, and you replied that the stalks had to be taken before the plants went to seed or they won't reproduce. "That's how rhubarb works," you explained. These plants went to seed weeks ago and municipal employees maintained them and the entire gardens.
The city worker tending trees in the garden that I talked to later said she was pretty sure that the rhubarb is for ornamental purposes only. "It would be like taking one of these shrubs from a different section of the display," she said. The worker added, "at least she could have cleaned up after herself" when she saw your discarded leaves, and stated, "after inspection, it's the taxpayers that will have to pay to replace those plants."
Hope you enjoyed your crumble.
G.J. Maluzynsky, St. Albert
