Spring colour with Brooms
Colourful shrubs are the perfect way of bringing dependable flowers to your borders in spring. With a minimum of input from you, shrubs will burst into flower, giving an unequivocal signal that spring has sprung and summer is on its way.
As with so many of our familiar garden plants, brooms have a wonderful folklore. According to an old Sussex rhyme, sweeping the house with a flowered branch of broom will sweep the head of the house away. Perhaps this informs the saying ‘a new broom sweeps clean’? Or perhaps not? Certainly, their flowers and buds have been used for medicinal purposes over time, including diuretics, emetics as well as to flavour and enhance beer (like hops).
For gardeners, it’s the glorious, abundant flowers that make the beautiful broom so appealing. Many are coming into flower towards the end of this month, making broom a perfect choice for planting now. Brooms can bring structure and balance to late spring borders, combining especially well with tulips and narcissi when they are flowering.
Talk through your requirements with garden centre staff, but here are a few suggestions you could look out for: Cytisus scoparius, or common broom, is a medium-sized shrub that bears bright yellow flowers in late spring. It reaches 1.5m in height and spread. Cytisus decumbens is ideal for ground cover or rock gardens and produces brilliant yellow flowers. It has a maximum spread of 1m. Cytisus ‘Porlock’ has a potential height and spread of 3m at maturity and makes a fine specimen plant for a shrub border, with its beautiful yellow flowers coming in spring. Cytisus x praecox ‘Warminster’ is compact and attractive, reaching a maximum height and spread of 1.2m and 1.5m and produces a profusion of pale yellow flowers in mid to late spring. For rich red flowers, look out for Cytisus ‘Maria Burkwood’ or Cytisus ‘Boskoop Ruby’. Cytisus multiflorus reaches a maximum height of 3m. It produces a dazzling display of white flowers in late spring and early summer.
A full sun position is preferable, and poor acid soils are ideal. In fact, their suitability to poorer soils means that they’re often used in land reclamation projects. They’ll also tolerate lime in most cases, provided soil is not too shallow over chalk. Brooms are easy-care, but it’s worth cutting back new shoots once they have flowered to keep the shrub youthful. Avoid cutting into old wood when you’re doing this.