THUNDER BAY — A local woman said she was shocked to find most of her garden missing, calling it not only a loss of greenery but one of sentimental value.
The theft occurred while Colleen Blaney and her fiancé were out at a Saturday morning baseball game, however, it wasn’t until the following afternoon when she realized they were gone.
“I came home and I cried my eyes out,” she said.
Two square-feet of creeping jenny, three variegated hostas, multiple ferns, sedum plants, a pink bee balm, a lamb's ear and forget-me-nots were all taken during the theft, she said.
“Saturday morning, I woke up relatively early for a baseball game and we thought we heard somebody out here, but there's always some kind of people out on the street,” she said.
“Unfortunately, we went to the back door, left all day, and it wasn't until Sunday when I come home and parked out front for my lunch that I noticed it was missing,” she said.
Blaney said, when her fiancé got home and reviewed the security footage, they were shocked to see a woman walking onto their property and taking the plants.
“You can see her on the footage bent down, she was there for over an hour, just pulling everything up,” she said. “She didn't leave anything behind, which is how we did not really notice it at first because they were just gone,” she said.
“There's no leaves on the sidewalk or anything, no dirt, no trace,” she said.
Blaney said the monetary value isn’t important to her but that most of the plants cannot be replaced for a sentimental reason.
“I didn't buy too many, but my mom sends me flowers every year and some of them are from her gardens back home,” she said.
“It is more the amount of effort and sentimental value of the garden that's now what's been taken.”
“You never expect somebody to go for something that's obviously so loved and appreciated, which is why it hurts so much,” she said.
Blaney posted about the theft on social media and said the outreach has been incredible. People have shared their own stories and offered to donate plants to help repopulate the garden beds, with some offers coming as far as Terrace Bay.
“I was feeling a bit down in the dumps about someone in our community taking from me, but then the outpouring of love that we got was mind blowing, so we're really happy about that part,” she said.
