A gardener who had tended a garden full of sunflowers for years came home to find that someone had cut them all down.
Chris Bank of St. Peters, Missouri, devoted the longest year of all, 2020, to sunflowers, KSDK reported. He became an expert, buying dozens of varieties and cross-pollinating them. This year, too, he planted 600 of the flowers in his front yard in a month, carefully developing a bleacher arrangement to make the different colors and sizes stand out.
“I grow them all from seeds and then have to transplant them into the ground,” he told the broadcaster.
He returned home one day to find that they had all been eradicated. His security camera showed a woman stopping her car in front of his house and using a pair of scissors to destroy the pollinator-friendly landscape.
He called police, who investigated the incident and identified a person by mid-July, the outlet said.
“All that work,” Bank told KSDK. “I would have preferred if she had started breaking the windows in my car because then I could just send it to the auto shop and have them fix it. I know they’re spiders, but they’re still alive.”
This is just the latest problem Bank has encountered on his journey. The second time he planted the sunflowers, his homeowners association reported him to the city for violating an ordinance that requires all yards to be 50 percent grass.
Similar hurdles arose again in 2022 – and again in 2023. He hasn’t given in. The city says it’s responding to residents’ complaints, though Bank argues he’s not overstepping the law.
This year, no complaint was filed with the city, although one complaint was filed illegally right on Banks’ lawn.
“I’m upset and angry, but also hurt,” he told KSDK. “I can’t imagine how anyone could excuse it by saying that this is OK in (her) head.”
In the spirit of supporting bees, birds and other wildlife through a wild garden — and fighting against arbitrary restrictions imposed by homeowners associations on environmentally friendly and money-saving choices — Bank said he will continue planting sunflowers as long as he can.
All the neighbors, except maybe one, are happy to hear this.
“This house was a local treasure that made my day every time I drove by,” one person wrote in a Reddit post about the crime. “I am devastated.”
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