Requiem for a yucca bloom

Kathleen Eric

We love plants, and have worked hard to make our front lawn, or at

least what is left of this frontage landscaping, attractive to view.

You see, eminent domain long ago claimed our circular drive with palm

trees. We consoled ourselves with one apple tree left near the front

door. After the “public good” took the frontyard, the passing parade

took the remaining foliage. Sadly, the little apple tree was eaten to

death.

Oh, we didn’t mind that the fruit was consumed, although it would

have been nice to get an occasional apple from our yearly crop. What

we didn’t understand was why the thieves brutalized the shrub in the

process of harvesting the fruit. Eventually, all of the branches were

stripped from the tree, and it withered to a twig. We did not replace

it, but filled a small front planter with not-so-exotic, but hardy

geraniums. The plant thieves were still not sated.

These thieves brought shovels. We would come out to water, and

find entire plants dug up along with a goodly clump of soil to insure

that it would transplant well at its new location.

The flower thieves not only plucked, hacked, ate and dug up the

foliage, they helped themselves to whatever they wanted from our

little strip of yard. One thirsty miscreant turned on the front yard

tap and helped himself to a big gulp. No problem. Glad to quench your

thirst, stranger. Just wish that you had shut the water off, and not

hastily thrown the hose under the foundation of our home. Days later,

our house was floating on “Lake Placentia.”

The next thief cut that watering hose from the faucet and carted

off all 50 feet of it. We speculated it was one of the flower

thieves. With all of the plants that had been taken, someone could

easily have had enough planting stock to establish a nursery, and

could now be in serious need of a watering device.

We took this last theft as a sign that we should maybe give up

gardening. We briefly considered the idea of digging a moat around

“ye old hovel,” and filling it with alligators. Heck, we already had

the water. This plan would probably entail all manner of variances,

costly permits and endless hours with the Planning Commission, so we

quit planting altogether.

Then one day (those of you with dirty fingernails who dig in the

earth barehanded, and find the smell of good, rich soil to be headier

than a Chanel fragrance will empathize) we just couldn’t stand having

those planters empty -- that thin, bare expanse of lawn with nary a

shrub. We wanted to see some green. We missed buds poking through the

soil just waiting to pop and show us their finery. We didn’t lose our

heads this time, though. We calculated. We thought that maybe, just

maybe, there were plants that wouldn’t be quite so attractive to

those plant thieves that had previously picked, mutilated and eaten

our front yard to bare earth.

We chose drought resistant, California native, and sturdy

vegetation. Lots of succulents and cacti. Some had blooms, most did

not. All the better to keep the youngsters from hacking off their

little flowery heads. These were plants that could take a lot of

abuse, bear their scars proudly and flourish in spite of the insults.

The first plants we installed were chosen for their hardiness and

the fact that, well, they were kind of ugly. None of the cacti that

we planted engendered any lust to pick or eat them. These were

gnarled old cacti, with knobs, warts, and the toughened hide of an

old burro. Shortly after these old brutes were transplanted and

enjoying a front row seat on Placentia Avenue, we came out one

morning for an early walk and, my God, the entire cactus was hacked

to pieces and lying dead on the sidewalk.

My spouse shook his head in disgust and despair, and silently

picked up the remains of the plant that he had cared for and

nurtured.

He stayed that way, silent and sphinx-like during our morning

walk. We ate our breakfast quietly that morning. He checked his watch

several times. Then he said he’d be off to do a few errands. He

returned home with iron fencing panels and steel stakes. At the end

of the day there was a double fence around the remaining plants.

We were not dissuaded from our beautification program.

We went wild, and decided to also landscape the front of our

vacant lot next door. More green. One of the jewels in this new

landscaping was a yucca tree that had been nurtured in our backyard.

Sort of a pet. Fed the best fertilizers and encouraged with regular

watering. We spoiled her. She liked her new digs up front as the

“Queen of the Garden”. She flourished. She bloomed. Ahhh, the yucca

bloom. High at the top of the spiky yucca leaves, is a waxy, pearly,

statuesque, branch filled to bursting with white flowers. She was a

real stunner. Nature’s perfection lasts quite awhile in the yucca

bloom.

We have never had the opportunity to watch the full cycle of our

yucca. Never. Every year since she has been transplanted, within a

couple of days, someone saws off the bloom and takes her away. Like

the most perverse of art thieves, who admires his ill-gotten treasure

only in the confines of his solitary world, this collector of yucca

flowers has also decided that he should be the only one to enjoy the

beauty that our yucca produces.

We haven’t endured this thievery without a fight. A few years ago

we put barbed wire around the bloom area. It was a trick to

camouflage the ugly wire and still protect the bloom.

Didn’t matter. It didn’t work.

This year we had two blooms ripening.

But once again our lovely yucca has been denuded. Last week, just

at the peak of beauty and ripeness, a vandal climbed on his vehicle

and sawed off the first bloom of the season. It was 4 a.m. We heard

him cranking his engine, and almost got out in time to witness the

yearly vandalism. Yesterday, sometime between late afternoon and 9

p.m., the second bloom was gone. Whoever cut this one must have done

so in broad view of any number of passersby.

Sadly, we cannot call law enforcement and report, “Someone picked

our flowers”. What can the police do? Take fingerprints off of the

yucca leaves? Check for tread marks from the getaway vehicle? Yeah,

in the annals of Westside crime, this isn’t a biggie. However, it is

part of the quilt of indignities that those of us who live here

endure, usually in silence. Kind of weird, isn’t it? Nah, maybe not,

maybe it’s just the perfect symbol for the Westside of Costa Mesa. A

cactus with a missing bloom, barbed wire hanging at the top, floating

over the empty, sawed stem.

Message to the Westside yucca thief: The yucca stays, and she’s

gonna bloom again, and this bloom is going to stay. And the Westside

is gonna bloom too.

* EDITOR’S NOTE: Kathleen Eric is a Costa Mesa resident.