An East Nashville woman found herself at the center of a bizarre landscaping mishap over the weekend after returning home on Sunday to find four shrubs missing from her front yard.
"My yard is my child, my pride and joy," Pat Gray said about the Lockeland Springs home she has lived in for more than two decades.
Try to imagine then the thoughts that ran through her mind on Sunday afternoon.
"I was walking from my neighbors home yesterday and I'm like 'Oh my God my bushes are gone!'" she explained on Monday.
"I couldn't believe what I was looking at, 'I just shook my head and though 'Someone has stolen my bushes,'" she added.
Seven years ago, the life long East Nashville resident paid $12,000 to have her yard landscaped. Until Sunday, there were five cotoneaster plants at the end of her front walk but on Sunday there was only one.
"I can't pull this plant out by hand, I'd have to have a shovel (to get it out of the ground," she explained about the remaining shrub.
Unsure who to call, Pat shared her peril on Facebook.
"I'm just amazed at the people who have come to my aid telling me what I should do 'were they microchipped?' Maybe someone couldn't afford landscaping, it's just surreal someone would do that," Pat said.
By late Monday afternoon, at least some of Pat's questions about the seemingly stolen shrubs had been answered. A Metro Public Works crew confessed to pulling the bushes out thinking they were brush.
"A worker said send them a receipt and they'll reimburse me," Pat said by phone when reached late Monday afternoon.
She was relieved the shrubs weren't stolen, but like the holes in her front yard, she was left feeling empty.
"My neighbors they wanna take me out for a Bushwhacker after all of this."
NewsChannel 5 reached out to Metro Public Works multiple times Monday for a comment about what happened.
Pat estimated that she would be reimbursed for the missing plants which will total $130.
