DENVER — Every spring, landscape architect Deborah Finch helps spruce up South Broadway by keeping businesses' planters pretty, and every spring her plants go missing.
"This one got it's centerpiece stolen," Finch said on Tuesday, looking into a giant pot near the post office on Broadway near East Alameda Avenue. "I don't know if people are just kind of watching it or what goes on, but they know the plants go in and come and help themselves to them."
Hundreds of dollars worth of stolen plants and Finch's labor have added up over years and years of plant theft for South Broadway businesses. Finch said she's not sure whether the thieves will ever be caught, and she's not even sure whether it's just one thief.
She does hope whoever steals these plants gets this message, though: "Stop stealing the plants. This isn't free. It isn't the city's. You're stealing from business owners, and the property around here, the people who walk down here and would like to enjoy the area."
It's not even like the thieves are getting away with rare plants. She said most of them could be bought at big box store's garden center. But she might have figured out a motive.
"I mean by now, somebody has a really nice garden," Finch said laughing. "That's the best I can figure."
She'll come back to check on the plants in the summer. Finch said she's hopeful she won't have to replace more plants, but she's not letting years of theft stop her from beautifying South Broadway.
More 9NEWS stories by Bryan Wendland:
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