KEY POINTS:
Green-fingered thieves are plundering thousands of dollars worth of plants from Auckland parks - forcing the city council to call for public help.
Signs in the Auckland Domain ask visitors for information after a spate of thefts on consecutive weekends.
"It was happening every weekend for a while there, mostly annuals and stuff like that," said one park ranger.
"People want to have gardens, and instead of going out and buying plants like most people, they take them from here. It's frustrating."
Plant thefts cost the council about $16,000 a year and parks services manager Mark Bowater said about a quarter were taken from the Domain.
Common targets include annuals, coloured hybrid flaxes, nikau palms and succulents. Bowater described the thefts as "largely opportunistic". "Because of the way they have been stolen, it's probably someone looking for something specific - like a yucca or a cyclad. It's sad to think people would stoop that low to steal plants from a high-profile park."
The council believes they are stolen for private gardens or landscaping, because, in most cases, groups of plants are taken or ripped out and left. A few years ago, the council tried electronically tagging valuable plants, but the system was dumped because of the "prohibitive" cost.
Larger specimens to disappear include a pohutukawa, taken from Western Springs Lakeside Park last year.
Bowater said staff would introduce monitoring systems and follow up public leads.
He asked the public to be vigilant and to take photos of offenders or car number plates and report them to the council or police.
