{"id":2576,"date":"2019-09-19T00:01:44","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T07:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/pal\/pal-question-300\/"},"modified":"2023-08-09T10:13:07","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T17:13:07","slug":"cytisus-and-allergy-free-gardening","status":"publish","type":"pal","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/pal\/cytisus-and-allergy-free-gardening\/","title":{"rendered":"Cytisus and allergy-free gardening"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>My question is about <i>Cytisus<\/i>. People with allergies complain about the Scotch broom that grows wild. Are the other tame varieties like <i>C. x praecox<\/i> going to be a pollen allergy problem also? I want to plant it as an informal hedge and my customers are worried. I want to tell them there is no comparison in the plants. Am I right?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To answer your second question first, Scotch broom (<i>Cytisus scoparius<\/i>) is an invasive European species that has given all brooms a bad name. Spanish broom (<em>Spartium junceum<\/em>) is also invasive, and is considered a Class A noxious weed in Washington State. There are garden-worthy brooms such as <i>C. x praecox<\/i>. A staff member here grew one in her previous garden for many years (and loved it). Some species of <em>Genista<\/em>, such as <em>Genista stenopetala<\/em>, are reportedly not invasive.<\/p>\n<p>According to the book <em>Allergy-Free Gardening<\/em> by Thomas Leo Ogren (Ten Speed Press, 2000), <em>Cytisus<\/em> ranks 5 on the allergy index scale of 1 to 10, but allergy to this plant is uncommon, except in areas where there is a lot of it growing. <em>Spartium junceum<\/em> rates a 7, while <em>Genista<\/em> rates a 4, about the same as a begonia or a primrose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My question is about Cytisus. People with allergies complain about the Scotch broom that grows wild. Are the other tame varieties like C. x praecox going to be a pollen allergy problem also? I want to plant it as an informal hedge and my customers are worried. I want to tell them there is no comparison in the plants. Am I right? To answer your second question first, Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) is an invasive European species that has given&#8230;<\/p>\n<div><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/pal\/cytisus-and-allergy-free-gardening\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Cytisus and allergy-free gardening<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","keyword":[522,488,521,489,487],"class_list":["post-2576","pal","type-pal","status-publish","hentry","keyword-allergies","keyword-cytisus","keyword-genista","keyword-noxious-weeds-washington","keyword-spartium-junceum"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pal\/2576"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pal"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/pal"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/hortlib\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=2576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}