The City spent millions to improve the look and landscaping along Preston. It is now a truly extraordinary street, a joy to walk along. (That it is extraordinary is an indictment of how bad the rest of our streets are…)

The contractor repairing the porch of a house (shown above) decided these shrubs make a great place to throw his demolition debris. Who cares? And he is right, there doesn’t seem to be any penalty for those who abuse the plantings.

All along the street, residents/businesses with generous paved frontages still decide to stack their garbage bags on top of the shrubbery. The twigs snap off, the plant gets thinner, the weeds grow up, more garbage is added to the pile.

And in this very dry spell, there are bits of dried up shrubs to be found every so often, and now even a few of the trees are shrivelling up. They may not die right away, but weakened, they will fall prey to the ravages of winter, dumps of ice, and yet more middens.

I called the City to ask them to water the trees and shrubs, they obviously haven’t rooted well enough yet to survive a sustained drought. The City has hopped right to it … calling someone to  check the contracts of the road rebuilders to see if we are still within the time they are supposed to keep watering the trees (hint: we aren’t). But will the City itself actually water the shrubs and trees to protect its investment?

Yes, I know the adjacent property owners should be watering. But many are tenants; others seem totally oblivious to garbage day, tidiness, or other social norms, let alone watering; and others are private businesses whose owners are in too much of rush to get back out to their exurban estates and in-ground pools.

Two years watering by the installing contractors is not enough. It needs to be three. Or four.

And we need some property enforcement folks ticketing those who destroy public property.