Letters to the Braidwood Times

While I wish Dr Dahal the very best in her “pursuit of other career opportunities”, there have been several short-term comings and goings of doctors at the Centre.

Braidwood patients with ongoing medical problems would like to have long-term relationships with our doctors rather than frequently having to bring another doctor up to speed.

The questions arise as to why this is occurring? Is there any common link? Is there an underlying management issue which needs to be addressed?

Recently in my garden I have had to remove a plant that I feel has the potential to be an environmental disaster.

The plant in question is called Arum Maculatum and Arum Italicum. These plants also have the ability to hybridise and produce an abundance of offspring.

I believe the plant has been brought into the garden from currawongs, magpies and rodents that eat the seed heads and spread the seed through faeces. I did not plant it in the garden.

This season the garden is covered in these plants.

I understand that they are beautiful green and lush at a time of the year when nothing else is. You can buy these plants in nurseries.

Arum macualatum and Arum Italicum are not on the noxious weeds register.

Another feature of the plant is the tall seed head that appears in spring turning from green to red.

Every part of the plant is deadly especially to children and live-stock.

The rapid  growth of the plant  in my garden is a concern.

At the moment I am digging it up with as many of the corms and tuberous roots plus surrounding soil and putting it into plastic bags and taking it to the tip.

I have been in touch with various weed experts from Bio-security to Local Council without any valuable information offered from these departments.

I was told to use a herbicide.

I have read that this only stunts the growth for a while and then it returns. My garden is organic.

These plants are entwined in tree roots, shrubs, bulbs ect. so the only solution is methodically digging them up. 

In my research my instincts seem to be right about it being invasive.

I would be interested to know if anyone else has had a similar problem, or if it proliferating in their garden.

I would recommend people not to grow this plant as they're inadvertently adding to the problem.

I am writing this to express my great pleasure at the fact the Jamie and the Royal Mail Hotel have finally embraced renewable energy technology and have had solar panels fitted to the old pub to try to offset the huge amount of electricity that pubs and business use in their normal daily activities.

Several of our older buildings in Braidwood, and other towns like ours, have roof levels well above the tree line.

As such, they can take advantage of their height to harness the abundant energy coming free from the sun every day.

If more business owners followed suit, we may become a little more environmentally friendly, and avoid a few of the problems that our modern lifestyles are creating, and thus be a little more proud of our unique town!  

My congratulations to Jamie for his initiative.