Scotch Broom

 Scotch broom is an invasive species with bright yellow flowers in the spring. Its seeds last for up to sixty years and each plant can produce 10,000 seeds. It was brought to BC from Scotland in the 1850’s as a garden ornamental by Captain Walter Grant who first planted it in Sooke.

To reduce growth other shrubs can be planted such as snowberry, salmonberry, thimbleberry, and Oregon grape, as well as red alder trees for shading and competition for nitrogen.

As you can see, we ended up with a huge pile of scotch broom. You can barely see Patrick, who with great enthusiasm cleared all the scotch broom growing in the front of my property, a job which took over six hours. Extremely difficult to eliminate, I will have to continue to remove this invasive every year. Some of the bigger ones were over eight feet high.