Scientific name: Cytisus scoparius. Common names: Scotch broom, broomtops, common broom, European broom, Irish broom, English. Native Origin: British Isles, central and southern Europe Ecological Impacts: This aggressive, rapid spreading plant can grow 3 feet in the first year. It can form dense impenetrable stands that degrade rangeland, prevent forest regeneration, and create fire hazards. It invades rapidly following logging, land clearing, and burning. It can form pure dense stands for miles along highway and country roads to crowd out native species and destroy wildlife habitat. Toxicity: Mild poisoning can occur from this shrub. Large amounts are required to cause symptoms in animals such as horses. Alkaloids have been identified as being the toxic principle. Cytisin, sparteine and isosparteine are found in the twigs, leaves and seeds in small amounts. The seeds of the plant can stay dormate for 160 years.

Have had mint, monarda, obedient plant with little to no problems. Campanula punctata reseeds but cute so I remove most of it in spring and leave few clumps. Macleya cordata reseeds, easy to pull. Bishop weed was planted because of my own stupidity- still trying to get rid of it but the bed full of bulbs and perennials so it is pretty hard to remove it completely. Chameleon plant died on me- I wanted it to grow. Petasites japonicus was speading last year with alarming speed- well, got killed this year during recent cold snap- barely found couple survivors and potted them up. Got some running bamboo last year- it is marginally hardy for me...

I am an ecologist working in the Fingerlakes region. We perform a wide array of invasive plant control to restore native habitats. Although Common, Swamp, and Butterfly Milkweed are agressive and very quick to spread, they are not ever considered invasive in most of the United States. People can often label "weedy" and "undesirable" plants as invaeive just because they do not like them. A plant thay it considered invasive is usually non-native and has no real ecological value. That being said, there are many actually invasive plants in the Milkweed family. Please do not ever plant Climbing Milkweed. Pale and Black Swallowart are also in the milkweed and are considered highly invasive. You may see many butterflys on these plants, such as Monarchs, but the Monarch larvae cannot eat the leaves of these types of Milkweed and will die. Please DO NOT plant them!

So yeah, you can't just broadcast seed for some of the wildflowers and expect them to grow thru the turf. Especially when the clovers and bird's foot trefoil are supplying the lawn with lots of nitrogen, (and shade in the drought times) and keeping the turf lush! So I have transplanted quite a few tumble mustard, high knapweed, chicory, fleabane, smartweed, mouse-ear hawkweed, autumn hawkbit, etc. this fall. I transplanted some during the summer months with varying degrees of success - I hope these fall plantings work better. The problem with transplanting them during the hot sunny months: they don't take as well; I'm putting them in bare spots and disturbing the soil which leads to a lot of unwanted weeds; and of course they need to be watered which leads to a huge number of sprouting unwanted weeds! Next summer, I have a different plan. I will cover any bare spots with corn gluten meal which acts as a pre-emergent herbicide for several weeks and then decomposes to a fertilizer by the time the weather turns cooler and I'm ready to plant stuff without just getting undesirable weeds like plantain, knotweed, and crabgrass. My plan was initially to not have to water this lawn anyway and now I see that watering in times of drought really leads to unwanted weeds. The lawn is thin topsoil on top of pure sand so it has always died every few years when a bad enough drought hit. I have mulched endless leaves into the lawn for 3 years and with the great number of earthworms that brings, my soil is getting better. Also the shade and nitrogen provided by the clovers, vetch, and bird's foot helps the actual grass stay green. Some plants simply do NOT like to be transplanted - bird's foot is one of those. Fortunately, you can collect seed from the pods somewhere where it is growing and broadcast them over the lawn and it will eventually take hold. It is very small the first year (I haven't even been able to determine when it is sprouting), noticeable the second year if you know what to look for, and healthy and flowering by the third year. There is a saying: "the first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps, and the third year it leaps!" White and red clover and violets and of course dandelions will all grow easily if seed is spread over the turf, especially if it is mown very short first. The next thing I'm working on is which weeds help or kill other grasses and weeds. Obviously wide leaves like dandelion, plantain, and violets deny grass beneath them water and sun and can choke it out. But I'm more interested in chemicals that plants produce to fight or help competition. There is a lot of info available on companion planting for vegetables but for weeds - not much. So I'm just watching and watching. I had one patch of a lush green prostrate knotweed that killed everything beneath it. Another patch of lush pinkish knotweed that did the same. But regular knotweed is not as bad. Autumn hawkbit (like delicate dandelions) inhibits sprouting near it, even of its own seed! But it doesn't bother growing grass. Mouse-ear hawkweed does the same and so sends runners like strawberries to propagate itself into dense mats which will then smother grass. The first line of defense against unwanted weeds is to mow the grass very short, but this tactic is NOT available when the goal is to have lots of wanted weeds. Next summer I plan to try spraying leaves of dandelions, plantain, and violets with vinegar and a tsp. of dish soap on a hot, sunny day. This is said to kill the leaves but not the root. That's O.K. with me if it works. I just want to hold back these aggressive weeds from taking over.