It's time you discovered The broom family

If you’re in the mood for some intense late spring colour, you cannot beat a flowering broom. Graham Clarke explores the relative values of cytisus and its cousins…

- Graham Clarke

THERE are few sights in late spring better than a flowering ‘broom’ in all its glory. Yes, we’ll have had the kaleidoscope of rhododendrons and azaleas, but for the sheer intensity of yellows, golds, russets and even reddish-purple shades, you need one of the flowering brooms. They are covered (literally) with masses of blooms like those of a pea plant.

Members of the broom family are, in the main, forms of Cytisus. There are both deciduous and evergreen kinds, varying in habit from low, creeping types to shrubs 13ft (4m) or more in height. Many have practically leafless shoots, giving them a light, almost grass-like quality that offers a useful contrast to nearby broad-leaved shrubs.

The most popular are forms of Cytisus x praecox – small shrubs that bloom from mid-spring. Tiny buds appear all the way along the stems, each one opening into a fragrant flower.

Brooms have a variety of uses: the smaller kinds are good for containers, while beds and borders provide the best home for larger hybrids; solitary specimen planting works well for most types, too. There is even one that offers good groundcover: C. x kewensis.

You can introduce bold splashes of colour into mixed borders by siting taller brooms towards the back. They can become leggy, but the shorter plants in front of them will camouflage this.

More than just cytisus