Genista tinctoria - Dyer's Broom - Seeds

Description

• Fabaceae Fabales (65 million years old)
• Western half of the Eurasian Continent from the Caucasus
• H 100cm x W 80cm
•  Z4 
• Deciduous perennial
• Synonyms: Dyer's Greenweed, Common Woadwaxen
• 1 packet of 20 seeds

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Details

Genista tinctoria is a small bush with a habit that is most often erect, sometimes spreading, with stiff, branched stems, oriented vertically, and covered with small lanceolate leaves, bright green from spring to autumn

In May-June, the Dyer's Broom flowers abundantly, with bright yellow, papilionaceous flowers, 1 to 1.5cm, grouped in dense racemes at the end of the year's shoots

They follow one another for 1 month, some years giving a dazzling spectacle

In nature, Genista tinctoria grows in dry meadows, on the edge of wooded areas, and in sparse forests, up to 1700m altitude

Several horticultural cultivars were created during the domestication of the species

Dyer's Broom is a dye plant traditionally used to produce lightfast and washfast yellows

Genista tinctoria has medicinal properties: Cathartic, Diaphoretic, Diuretic, Emetic, Stimulant, Vasoconstrictor

However, it contains toxic alkaloids, and care must be taken when using it for self-medication

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Cultivation

The Dyer's Broom can grow on dry and poor soils, but it will have more harmonious vegetation and more spectacular flowering on moderately fertile garden soil

Sow the seeds in March-April in pots, 3 seeds per pot, buried 1cm

Keep moist and in the sun until germination, then cultivate until you obtain plants that can be handled, for planting in the garden a few weeks later

Water in summer the first year to help the plant to settle its roots

Afterwards, this little broom will no longer require any care

No disease, no pest

1^st flowering 2 years after sowing

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Use as a Dye

Harvest the flowering twigs as they bloom, and use them immediately fresh, or dry them for later use