Got broom?
Do you have Scotch broom because you love its yellow flowers? Do you have Scotch broom because you need the deep roots for stabilizing your hillside? Here’s what’s bad about that:
Scotch broom is highly invasive, displacing native vegetation and interfering with reforestation by out-competing Northwest native seedlings. In addition, it is a potential fire hazard. Is mildly toxic and its fragrance triggers allergic reactions in many people.
Replace your Scotch broom with Northwest natives like beautiful yellow flowering Oregon grape. It comes in various heights, lending itself nicely to various areas of your landscaping. Our native bees enjoy the nectar from its flowers. The birds get sustenance from its berries. An added bonus is that Oregon grape also has a strong root system.
There are other Northwest native plants that can be replacements for your invasive noxious Scotch broom. Want more ideas? Contact the Clallam County Noxious Weed Control Program at www.clallam.net/weed/.
They also can suggest ways of taking out/eradicating Scotch broom.
Want to form your own Scotch broom removal team? Contact me, gretha.d@wavecable.com. I’ve organized a team since 2013. Broom Busters mission: Eradication of the invasive and noxious Scotch broom along the Olympic Discovery Trail, while raising money for the Dungeness River Audubon Center’s education programs and maintenance of Railroad Bridge Park, Sequim. See www.DungenessRiverCenter.org.
Gretha Davis
Sequim
Conservation’s wisdom is key
Samuel Clemens once remarked, “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
It has been suggested that Mother Nature may have marked a plant or animal for extinction (“Survival comes first,” Letters to the Editor, Sequim Gazette, May 17, page A-11).
Tell that to the buffalo and the elephant and the tiger and the wolf and the grizzly bear and the whale and, yes, the salmon.
While other nations destroy their environs, presidents like Theodore Roosevelt set an example with his foresight to save our national parks through conservation for future generations.
The shame would fall on man, not Mother Nature, had we not intervened in an effort to save the balance of nature.
Roger B. Huntman
Sequim
On the eve of this Memorial Day …
In exactly one week I will have completed my 85th revolution about the sun on this planet. I have been blessed because I lived my life in the United States, the singular most wonderful place on earth. I am an American! That is an honor and it isn’t to be taken lightly.
I believe that the American culture is under assault by every insignificant, self-serving, micro-minority in existence. None of whom have any idea what it is to be an American and have no desire to become one (even those who were born here). An anecdote: My wife’s grandparents emigrated from Germany to the United States in the early part of the last century, graduated, so to speak, from Ellis Island. They came here to become Americans, indeed my wife’s grandmother forbid the speaking of German in her home, “We are Americans, we speak English!”
Today, very few “immigrants” enter this country to become Americans — they want to retain their national culture, their language, and in some cases their flag all while enjoying our largesse and at the same time publicly demonstrating against our culture.
Enough, I’m all for immigration if they come to this country to become Americans, adopt our language and our national mores. But I’m tired of having the American way of life denigrated by non-Americans who haven’t the slightest scintilla of an idea why we even exist. If one comes to this country to be an American, that’s fine, if not, stay the hell at home.
God bless these United States.
Ethan Harris
Sequim
