DOWNTOWN TREES UNDER ATTACK

Downtown Cape Girardeau needs a playground, Debbie Naeter suggests. She's not even half-kidding.

Naeter is looking for a way for those who continually vandalize the small trees that have been planted in the two square blocks -- Water to Spanish streets and Independence to Broadway -- downtown to burn off some energy in another way.

Two or three trees must be replaced every year due to vandalism, she says. The latest casualty is a dwarf crab apple sapling snapped in half last week at the southwest corner of Main and Themis streets.

Until recently, the City of Cape Girardeau replaced the trees whenever a vandalism occurred. But Dan Muser, director of the Parks and Recreation Department, says the trees have to be replaced so often that the city can't afford to continue the practice.

"I don't have the budget for downtown trees," he said. "I just have a budget for the park trees."

Damage costly

The city is continuing to provide the labor to plant new trees downtown, but the Downtown Merchants Association or individual merchants must purchase them. "That's $100 a pop," Naeter says.

She doesn't blame the city for being unwilling to continue replacing the trees.

Naeter owns The Plant Lady's Corner in downtown Cape Girardeau and is a member of the Downtown Merchants Association Beautification Committee. To see that people are intentionally breaking and scarring trees is all the more distressing for her.

She wonders if saturating the downtown with trees and plants might curtail the vandals.

"Maybe they would stand back in awe or not know where to start," she says.

Some of the trees have been damaged accidentally, either by people who didn't realize how fragile they are or in at least one case by a car door opening.

But three years ago, a tree that had just been replaced was pulled from the ground and dragged to the parking lot at Themis and Water streets, where the thief or thieves apparently put it in a vehicle.

The DMA maintains the plants in the large pots downtown. The pots are chained to the sidewalk so they cannot be moved. Inside are yucca plants, which are handled only with care but still get pulled up.

"They've got to go away bloody," Naeter says.

In 1998, 16 hanging flower baskets the merchants put up to beautify the downtown were stolen at loss of more than $500. Naeter had created the baskets.

Flowers planted in front of A Touch of Grace at the corner and Spanish and Themis streets are routinely pulled up and thrown around during the evenings, manager Annette Emmons says.

Evelyn Boardman has replaced the plants in the planters in front of her antique store, the Madder Rose, five times since November. Even the spiny yucca plants have disappeared.

Lack of respect

"Most people are good," she says. "But some have a lack of respect for other people's property."

Naeter's theory is that most of the trees are victimized by people leaving the bars late at night.

Suggested solutions include putting a letter in the bars asking the patrons to leave the trees alone and perhaps even organizing a late-night neighborhood patrol.

Dennis "Doc" Cain, owner of Port Cape Restaurant, says he hopes the culprits are kids and not adults. "I hope it's not the bar patrons," he said.

The bar owners usually donate proceeds from the annual Pub Crawl to the DMA's beautification projects. This year's proceeds, however, are going to the planned Fourth of July fireworks display.

The DMA annually allocates $600 for beautification.

Most of the trees planted downtown are dwarf varieties because the planting areas are small and merchants don't want their signs obscured. Muser says the trees are already stressed by being surrounded by so much concrete.

"It's amazing to me that they even live, much less grow," he says.

But most of the trees that have died have been casualties of vandalism, not bad conditions, he said.

"It's aggravating," he said. "But all you can do is keep going."