In article , John McGaw
wrote:

Sometimes events can make even a peaceful gardener feel like becoming a
vigilante: http://makeashorterlink.com/?R2926209B

That story is badly reported so don't go playing Batman yet. The vandalism
as described would not have killed the irises as these hysterics claim in
the article you cite. Sounds like some ****ed off gardeners are lying &
exaggerating for effect. Wrecking the signs & the leaves would not kill
even one plant.

JoAnn Mukherjee has been telling newspapers that the plants were killed &
important genetic material lost forever. Although in some reports she is
quoted with an "If" in front every wild assertion, for later deniability.
Debbie Michelsen even though exaggerating about some plants perhaps dying
in the future (none having yet died) but then let slip that there would be
NO PROBLEM re-identifying the varieties when next they bloom.

A report on the incident by Alicia Zadrozny for the Montclair Times
described the vandalism as "disruption" of two flower beds, no plants
killed. The Star-Ledger of Newark reported some of the roots were dug up,
but none were stolen so nothing was lost. In a separate story in the
Star-Ledger they spiced up the story by calling it "attempted murder," but
still not lasting damage.

The actual truth is this incident saddled them with a grand total of 156
unidentified plants & these have been safely potted in a greenhouse for
future re-identification. Depending on which volunteer is jabbering at the
time, their whole collection consists of either 2,000 or 4,000 varieties;
the two beds that were vandalized was just not the end of the world.

So either some of these garden volunteers & caretakers shooting their
mouths off know nothing whatsoever about irises, or they're angry about
the signs being knocked over & some leaves stomped on &amp they're just
telling hysterical whoppers to get sympathy. The liars also claimed the
garden had forever lost specimens dating to the 1600s (this iris garden
has exactly ONE variety dating to the 1600s, the majority are 19th Century
cultivars) but depending on which exaggerating moron you ask, they will
sometimes claim to have varieties that go back to the 1500s. But it is a
VICTORIAN collection & why they have to tell whoppers is beyond me since a
Victorian collection is sufficient to boast about. So these are definitely
a pack of nutters who don't care much about the facts, certainly not
credible enough witnesses to base one's desire for vigilantism on.

They have been blaming juvenile dilinquents with no evidence to
substantiate that. To me, the members of & volunteers at the garden sound
like a bunch of ****ing loonies, & they probably have all sorts of
in-fighting & possessive behaviors & club politics, so they should be
looking among their own staff, officers, & volunteers for the disgruntled
vandal, about whom they know nothing definitive but that he but not likely
she had great big feet & left great big footprints (some kids have great
big feet but sounds like an adult male foot to me).

The Mission Statement of the Presby Memorial Iris Garden unfortunately
does not include any intention to preserve important genetic material.
Their mission is to keep the garden planted & cared for & have people
visit it. Their chief activity is weeding & replanting & greeting visitors
& selling unlabeled rhizomes. If they REALLY had anything that could not
be found in any number of other gardens, then the first fungus disease or
iris virus to take out an area of their gardens really would destroy
something forever, & the vandal would be their half-assed methods of
playing at being such important gardeners. If one vandal with two big feet
could really rob the world of important genetic material, then iris
diseases will much more certainly do it & this allegedly rare genetic
material is not safe in these peoples' incompetent care. If they have done
the right things to preserve the genetic material it is not all in one
place labeled with a couple little signs anyone could remove, waiting for
a disease OR a boot -- & of the two tragic fates, the boot is
comparatively a good thing since the plant invariably survives.

Every year the iris garden has a blow-out sale of rhizomes -- ten
different "historic" irises UNIDENTIFIED in a bag. That's how much they
care about their damned labeling system. And though thousands of iris
lovers are growing plants from this garden, the slipshod inability of the
organization to sell things labeled does mean that if (when) some disease
takes out a section of their collection, they wouldn't be able to make a
request to the gardening community to get lost varieties back cuz the
garden sells the stuff unlabeled. Fact is it is CUSTOMARY that the irises
in this garden are badly marked for varieties. There are just so many
reasons some ****ed off member might've wanted some kind of revenge
against these goofballs.

By exaggerating & lying they get to act out their own anger that it
happened, then if the exaggerations are believed by enough people, they
will increase their fundraising success in the next several newsletters
they send out, by whining & making like they're some kind of despised Jews
victimized by the holocaust, which you & I can fix if we send them as much
money as we can spare. That's pretty profitable spin for the sake of 156
plants separated from their labels, a tiny fraction of the number of
plants they intentionally sell separated from their labels.

A lot of nice little gardens are pretty much run by power-mad tiny tin
gods who **** off their volunteers & cause more grief than pleasure &
ignite more power-plays than leadership. The important people in such an
organization are the fundraisers, not the ones who actually take care of
the gardens, & often the only paid expertise in sight is in the political
& fundraising back-end of an organization, not in the garden; the
gardeners end up treated as menial laborers & do resent it, & the
power-play losers & squeezed-out boarder members in the political end are
likewise vengefully disgruntled. Symptomatic of their discord &
incompetence is how they can have policies of selling rhizomes unlabeled &
other crappy mischief, & have loonies running around claiming that
teenagers plural rather than one person with big feet pulled up irises
resulting in important genetic material forever lost.

I do think whoever did it should be caught & charged criminally, then sued
civily, but I also think the garden's caretakers should be doing a less
slipshod job & should be a lot more careful about telling whoppers to the
press & blaming the local teenage population without even a whisper of
evidence kids had anything to do with assaulting their ill-run outfit.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
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"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to
liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot." -Thomas Jefferson