Cytisus scoparius Seeds | Common Broom
LATIN NAME: Cytisus scoparius
COMMON NAME: Common Broom
Plant Profile
Known to gardeners as Common Broom, Cytisus scoparius is a shrub in the pea family, native to Europe. It grows quickly and stands poor, dry soil well. It likes sun, and light, well-drained soil. Its appeal to pollinating insects adds a second, ecological layer to its ornamental one. It is hard to name another plant that gives this much for this little trouble.
Science & Biotechnology
Within the pea family, Cytisus scoparius is of continuing interest to researchers working on plant diversity, seed biology and the selection of improved garden forms. Golden flower display of common broom gives it a recognised place in research on dryland shrubs of pea family, and scoparius species appears in studies of stem-flowering habit and nitrogen-fixing legumes. Modern propagation practice has made this species straightforward to raise by ordinary good methods.
Uses & Benefits
Beyond its ornamental appeal, Common Broom has the practical versatility that makes a plant worth growing from seed year after year. In dry, sunny bank, common broom brooms spring bank with golden flowers. Yellow flowers open for bees, green stems give year-round presence, and shrub clothes dry slopes and poor ground. It grows well in light, well-drained, sunny ground. Thereafter it wants only the ordinary attentions any garden plant receives.
Brooms are glorious spring shrubs; they contain cytisine, a nicotine-receptor alkaloid now developed as a smoking-cessation medicine, which also makes the plant itself unsafe for self-use.
Growing from Seed
Seed is the natural starting point for Common Broom, and the process is uncomplicated. Fill a pot with a light seed compost, sow evenly on the surface, cover thinly and stand it somewhere warm, bright and evenly moist. A spell of cool, moist conditions ahead of sowing brings the seed along nicely and supports even germination. Grow the youngsters on steadily in pots until well rooted, then move them to their final positions.
Our Take
Within its genus it stands out for garden reliability. A few weeks of cold, moist stratification before sowing mirrors its natural cycle.
Related Reading
More species in the same orbit as Common Broom: