When Margaret D’Abreo came outside and saw that her beloved yellow dinnerplate dahlia was missing, all she could say to her husband was: “They’re at it again.”

Last year one of her flowers was swiped from her front garden and then last month she woke up to find it had happened again.

“They yank it right from the root with the stake and the support,” she said.

Fifteen days after her discovery in July she found a second dahlia was gone and two weeks after that her neighbour discovered one of her dahlia’s had also been stolen – a flower planted by D’Abreo in her neighbour’s yard as she’s prone to sharing with those who admire her gardening.

“My whole street admires my dahlias,” she said.

Passerby out for an evening stroll in the Ellesmere Road and Meadowvale Avenue area comment on the large blooms while neighbours who ask are sometimes invited to stop by in the fall to pick up a tube so they can plant their own dahlias in the spring.

If, in fact, the thief was a neighbour, she would share with him as well.

“They’re either too lazy or they don’t want to take the trouble,” she said. “It’s a lot of work.”

She said she is afraid the stolen plants won’t survive.

“It’s sad because it hurts me more because the plants are deprived of loving care,” D’Abreo said.

The large plants were 40 inches tall and left a trail of soil to the east. She asks those in the area to take a peek over their fence to see if there’s a large wilted yellow dahlia they maybe hadn’t seen before.

“This crime has to be stopped,” D’Abreo said.

She wonders about what the thief might take next.

“It’s just very mean,” she said. “Today they’re stealing a plant, but tomorrow they’ll get bolder and steal something else.”