Thousands of dollars worth of plants have been stolen from the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens.
Robert Beautement, CEO of the Botanic Gardens, says volunteers have been noticing missing plants since Sunday and the robbers could have had "more than one visit".
"Some time between Sunday and Wednesday this week, there's been the progressive disappearance of plants," Mr Beautement said. "The thefts have occurred in two of our most popular gardens - the succulent garden and the bromeliad garden."
"We estimate about 100 plants have gone missing. The volunteers work terribly hard in the gardens and this is a big loss to them - they put their heart and soul into the gardens, and they're very distressed about the whole matter."
A similar amount of plants were also stolen from the Gardens two years ago.
"There's a few theories - apparently there's a bit of a market in this sort of thing, the online purchasing of these plants," Mr Beautement said.
"Not necessarily in the Hunter, but sometimes out of town as well. Apparently there is a market for things like succulents and bromeliads."
Police have been notified, and the Gardens are currently accepting donations in the form of replacement plants or money.
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| Image credit: www.huntergardens.org.au/gallery |
