Editor:
I love to garden. I love flowers. As many of our residents do, I spend a great deal of time and money on nurturing plants. (My watering comments I will save for another day.)
Among my favourites are annual breadseed poppies. These have beautiful large pale pink ruffled blooms producing seed for both baking and for next year’s crop.
While we were away last week ALL of the seed heads were cut off and stolen. This means I will have a very meagre crop of flowers next year as my new seed is gone.
To swipe a few seed pods is one thing. I wouldn’t have missed them. To go all around our property harvesting this seed means: a) Someone actually knew what they were after and how many there were. b) They were waiting until the seed was ready. c) They were watching our house to see when we and our neighbours were away.
These thieves were absolutely ruthless and did not hesitate to collect every single flower seed head from numerous locations in my garden. Some were in dense bunches, some in pots and some in clusters with other plants. Some were single volunteers. This harvest would have taken quite some time.
To put this in another perspective: Last year’s yield was 150g. This year there were twice as many plants. A package of seed is usually 0.25g and costs about $3 (plus shipping). Thus, 150g of seed would cost $1,800 (without shipping). I have not found a website that will ship these seeds with bulk pricing to Canada.
I understand that some may see this situation as a petty annoyance. So, have a laugh. I don’t mind entertaining you.
To me it felt like a personal violation and a sad day in our community.
Is the word integrity disappearing from our vocabulary? There seems to be a lot of people who have no conscience when it comes to fishing, crabbing and collecting clams and oysters illegally. Gardens are now being targeted, as reported in the Coast Reporter’s Aug. 9 Kisses and Kicks.
Linda Mijo Fisher, West Sechelt
