In spring our hillsides can be covered with brilliant soft yellow flowers that are beautiful to behold. And yet – they are an incredibly invasive plant that grow in dense stands that outcompete many native plants. These dense stands are highly flammable and increase the risk of wildfires. The most common species found in California are Scotch broom, French broom, Spanish broom, and Portuguese broom. Scotch broom is often found on interior mountains and on lower slopes in Northern California and is very prevalent in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Without management, these plants can survive for about 12 to 17 years, producing thousands of seeds.
These upright shrubs that range from 3 to 10 feet tall, typically produce small, yellow, pea-shaped flowers from mid spring to summer and produce seed pods in late summer. All brooms are prolific seed producers, with a single shrub producing as many as 2,000 to 3,500 pods containing up to 20,000 seeds.
What can you do? Avoid planting any broom species. While most retailers do not sell the most common invasive brooms, many do sell hybrids that could become highly invasive in the natural landscape. Instead, go for similar looking plants like forsythia and golden currant.
If you have brooms on your property and want to remove them, here are many different non-chemical and chemical methods that are effective in managing these plants.