HANDS OFF AWESOME BLOSSOM!
Ire as selfie-snappers shake cherry trees
Not OK, bloomers. Hordes of insufferable socialmedia influencers have been aggressively shaking the blooming cherry trees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to get the perfect shot — forcing security guards to shoo them away “40 or 50” times daily, The Post has learned.
Dozens of selfie snappers were spotted yanking branches so pink petals would flutter down like snow, while others pulled and twisted limbs to get Instagram worthy footage of the flowers next to their faces, according to visitors and workers.
Some of the arbor abusers were even seen climbing the beloved trees — which have reached the peak of their yearly bloom in recent weeks — and plucking blossoms to put in their hair for photo ops.
“How big of a j--koff do you have to be . . . you have to shake it and mess it up for a picture?” Botanic Garden security guard Frank Picarello, 49, fumed to The Post.
When it’s busy, Picarello said, he has to fend off petal pushers “40 to 50 times a day, easy.”
Obnoxious branch fondlers have been flocking to the garden since the trees started blooming six weeks ago — and often ignore his warnings, he said.
“You’d think it’s the children that would have a hard time not touching the trees, but it’s the adults . . . No matter how many times you ask nicely, they still do it,” Picarello said.
‘Risk breaking a limb’
“I tend to tell people, ‘When you go to a museum you don’t touch the exhibits or try and shake the T. rex. Why do that when you come here?’ ” Picarello added. “This is a garden that’s for the community, for people to come in to see, not to destroy.”
A Post reporter captured a man on video shaking the same tree for multiple people to cause the blossoms to rain down.
Rob Gillies, a certified arborist for Keiling Tree Care in New Jersey, said manhandling branches can spoil the dazzling views for others.
“If you’re doing it prematurely, you’re dislodging blossoms that may have been held for longer,” he said. “They’re only in bloom for a few weeks, and you’re shortening the time frame for which other people can see them.”
Visitors who bend branches could also break them, he said.
“If you’re doing it with smaller branches you risk breaking a limb and then you have to prune it unnecessarily,” Gillies said. “It’s not great if you’ve got too many people manhandling trees and potentially causing damage.”
Nature-loving New Yorkers called the branch shakers selfish.
“It’s upsetting,” said artist Tina Cernero, who witnessed the mayhem Sunday at the Botanic Garden.
‘Pulling and picking’
“There was one guy that really pissed me off. He was with his daughter pulling and bending a branch, almost to a point it would break,” she said. “He was pulling the branch down so it would be next to her face for a photo.”
Cernero, who photographs images of plants and animals, said it made her cringe to see the trees bent and twisted.
“People were pulling and picking flowers off trees and putting blossoms in their hair . . . It was for selfies,” she said. “They think it’s the end of the season, so it’s not a big deal. But these are live living elements of life.”
Brooklyn Botanic Garden has posted warnings not to “touch any parts of our plants, pick flowers or other plant parts or walk in plant beds” on its Instagram page.