Rockway Gardens regular target for vandals
Destructive behaviour dates back to last summer, supervisor says
KITCHENER — Flowers have been pulled out of their beds and trees snapped on a regular basis by vandals over the past year at Rockway Gardens.
GardenKitchener, formally known as the Kitchener Horticultural Society, manages the property for the city, and has been looking after the grounds for nearly a century.
This type of “targeted” destruction has never happened before, said Karin Clemens, the garden’s supervisor.
Clemens said the incidents started happening last August and have been a regular occurrence ever since.
On May 27, benches were toppled, tulips pulled and trees destroyed. Then one of the benches was shattered near the end of June, shortly after a company had come to repair it after the May incident.
“It started mostly with youth hanging out down at the end (of the garden), doing drugs in public, leaving behind their drug paraphernalia, being rude to people walking through and leaving a lot of garbage,” said Clemens. “I have no idea if this is who is doing this, but it’s just been escalating ever since.”
Staff have seen several homeless people camping on the grounds, she said, and garbage collection has become a daily chore.
Clemens has been coming to the gardens since she was a kid and this is all new to her.
“We’re open to the public, but we want it to be an open and safe space for everyone.”
GardenKitchener has been in talks with the city about the incidents, said Niall Lobley, Kitchener’s director of parks and cemeteries. He said Waterloo Regional Police have been notified, and they are discussing ways the vandalism can be managed.
The gardens — like other city parks — are routinely patrolled by city security teams. Enhanced lighting and security cameras are options, he said, but there are no current plans to install either.
The nature of the vandalism is not uncommon across the city. In fact, said Lobley, it is considerably less than what they see in many of the other major
park spaces.
“In short, it is not something which is out of the ordinary from a city-wide park perspective,” he said. “Experience in other parks and open spaces shows that sometimes vandalism can be short-lived happening over a short period of time, perhaps a few months or one to two years, and sometimes it can be routine, ongoing and regular.”
For Clemens, she just wants the people doing this to understand they are hurting real people. All the benches that have been destroyed were donated, she said, usually in memory of a loved one.
She has a team of about 10 fulltime and part-time workers who are there every day to maintain the gardens. It’s hard work, she said, and there’s more than enough to do without the added destruction.
“We want to welcome anyone to the gardens, but we ask that you be respectful,” she said. “It is a place to be treasured and enjoyed and that means everyone should get to enjoy it, but that can’t happen if you destroy it.”