Hi All: I'm in Zone 7 on Vancouver Island. On the wild part of my small property there is a lot of this yellow shrub, photos below. It has very tough stems that are hard to cut through when I'm cutting things back close to the road. Can anyone tell me what it is? The whole shrub in photo 1 is about 4' tall. The flowers are small, each one about 2" across. Thank you
Sea Witch Some bird has given you Common Broom or Cytisus scoparius. That's a shrub I would prune back to about 2 feet underground. Then watch so it doesn't come back. ;)))
Thanks Barbara. I looked it up, and it sounds dreadful. 8o( Seems perhaps I should dig up my whole place and pour concrete.
It would probably just grow thru the concrete. Does that mean you have a lot? If so, just take it one step at a time. If you can chop them down enough to prevent the formation of seed pods. That will help to keep them from spreading. The big bushes we pulled out with a tractor. There is a hand weed lever/puller, sort of like the one used on lawn dandylion but Giant economy sized, that we used on the smaller ones. It's not going to be a quick fix, but it can be done. Some people leave a few here and there because they are pretty. But if you do leave any, make sure your prevailing winds blow the seed away from your place. Hope this helps. barb
Seeds of this shrub are dispersed by the mature pods popping open suddenly and throwing them. There is liable to be little, if any involvement of birds.
Also highly invasive (as you may have surmised by the abundance of it). I pull it out or cut it back as soon as I see it starting.
I had no idea it was such a problem here on the island. Right now I only have it near the road where I've been giving it the string trimmer and hedge trimmer crew cut for visibility. Tomorrow it will get the Lizzie Borden treatment. thanks so much for everyone's help
Years ago (twenty or so) I used to make a special trip to Victoria in May to see the broom along the Victoria Golf Course. Now I can just "drive" along in Google Street View to see it. There really doesn't seem to be any more of it now than there was then.
The seeds are though further distributed by ants, which feed on the fleshy seed stalk. Does depend on the google car going there when the Broom is in flower!
Tackling broom is a big job and yes, take it one stalk at a time. What I was told when volunteering for this task at Fort Rodd Hill is to pull out any plant pencil size or smaller. Gently press the soil back to minimize disruption to the site. The larger ones should have the soil pulled aside a little and cut off just below soil level. Apparently if you pull the big ones, it just frees up space and encourages seeds in the soil around it to germinate to grow more broom.
A few years ago we spent a few days on Vancouver Island and did see this plant all over the place. While we were at Butchart gardens I asked a guide what it was, and the lady of course knew the answer. She went on and on about what a horrible invasive plant it is. I asked why they had a specimen of Ailanthus on the property since she has such contempt of invasive plants. "That's not a problem here.", she answered. "Not YET." I said. My outlook on native vs. invasive species of plants has changed as I find myself constantly battling the invasives. (You have no idea how badly I wanted to cut down the Paulownia tomentosa (Princess tree) that is in front of the parliament building in Victoria... I just did not want to start an international incident...) To be honest, I had a hard time enjoying parts of the UBC gardens since there are so many invasive plants there. It would not have bothered if the plants were labeled as such so people can learn about noxious invasive species, but sadly they are not, so the opportunity is lost.
Ehhh... Paulownia tomentosa and Ailanthus altissima aren't invasive in our local area. I don't think I'd get upset if I visited Kew Gardens and saw Daphne laureola (a rare native plant in the UK, a local invasive here). I counted 4 species (I probably missed a few) from this invasive species checklist for British Columbia that are purposefully cultivated in the Garden -- all 4 are in the Physic Garden (medicinal plants garden). Of the 4, 3 are listed as "nuisance" species (weedy) and 1 is listed as the more severe "noxious", which it is in the drylands interior of the province (here, it behaves). There are plenty of species on that list, though, that we do have challenges with in the garden - I need to take off my shoes to start counting those.
Ailanthus is recorded by A.L. Jacobson in Wild Plants of Greater Seattle - Second Edition (2008) as being "naturalized weedily". Paulownia reseeds under certain circumstances, such as in the presence of automatic irrigation (like when seedlings of one or more of my trees appeared in the yard across the street) or among rocks (several instances observed by me alone).
