Foes of broom ignore the facts

Further to Samuel King’s letter to the editor (The News, June 20), I say bravo!  You have expressed perfectly what I have wanted to write for about two years now.  It bothered me extremely last year when I saw three to four-foot piles of dead broom laying on the side of Northwest Road every couple of feet for most of last summer. This year, it seems Beachcomber is the location of choice. Again, we have piles upon piles of dead wood littering the sides of the road.  I for one would much rather see the beautiful yellow and red blooms than ugly, dead wood.

 I was also going to inundate The News with pictures of broom existing quite happily with native grasses, ferns, salal, wild roses, etc., living amongst it. These people who say that broom obliterates all native species around it obviously do not take nature walks, or if they do, they are not very observant of the nature all around them. True, there are patches of nothing but broom in certain areas, but perhaps this is because the environment in those specific areas would not support other plants.

 There is a local farm near where I live, approximately two and a half acres.  The owner moved into a nursing home approximately three to four years ago and the field is no longer mowed.  There are two scraggly broom plants in the field. Quite obviously, the broom has not taken over the field as  the zealots like to scare people with.  As a matter of fact, most of the field is chest high in native grasses and many a time I have seen deer in there grazing. There are also the occasional broom plants outside his field.  I have walked the trails surrounding his property for 18 years and there have always been the occasional broom plants in this area but, quite obviously, the broom has not taken over the area. 

On thing that has boggled my mind for the past two years is if Broom Busters is so concerned about invasive plants, why don’t they go after the blackberries?  Now there is a dangerous and invasive plant.   

Petra Tschauner

Nanoose Bay