Garden vandals break kids' hearts

CHRIS HILLOCK/Taranaki Daily News

GARDEN GONE: Waitara Central School's chief gardener Jessica Gould, 8, with the remains of the senior students' garden. The school was hit hard by vandals at the weekend.

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Vandals have destroyed a whole year's work by Waitara primary school pupils and left the children without Christmas presents for their families.

Waitara Central School's two raised vegetable gardens were wrecked at the weekend in an attack the staff are calling "utterly disappointing".

As well as tearing out plants, smashing fruit trees and vandalising goal posts, thieves stole an eight-seater picnic table that was bolted to the ground.

They also pulled out the new entrants' little lettuce plants.

Deputy principal Delwyn Riding said the children were so upset by the attack they were stunned into silence when told about it at morning assembly.

"We'd only just potted all the plants for the children to take home as Christmas gifts and then this happened," she said.

"It's just senseless vandalism by a bunch of weak individuals."

The two gardens, one for the senior class and one for the juniors, had been built by teachers and parents during the weekends.

Local gardeners had then donated the seedlings and the children had grown everything from potatoes to passionfruit.

Signs for each plant had been painted by another child who was recovering at home from a leg operation while chief gardener Jessica Gould, 8, was charged with watering the patch each day.

Jessica said she was "not happy" with the vandalism.

"I really liked watering the plants every morning because I got to go outside and see them growing,' she said.

"Whoever did it, please don't do it again because we've tried really hard with our garden."

Ms Riding said the school would now replant the vegetables and try to explain to the children what had happened.

It was considering getting surveillance cameras or closing the grounds at the weekend to stop attacks from happening again.

- © Fairfax NZ News