Genista tinctoria
Dyer’s greenweed, dyer’s broom, dyer’s weed: its specific epithet, tinctoria, says it all — its flowers provided the yellow used in medieval dyes, and when mixed with woad blue, they produced the famous “Kendal green” of English fabrics. A modest shrub that clothed Europe for centuries.
Characteristics:
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Golden-yellow flowering: luminous clusters from spring through summer, set against fine, bright green foliage.
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Small shrub: 50 cm to 1 metre, perfect for borders, rock gardens or banks.
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Highly resilient: it tolerates heatwaves and poor soils, where few plants survive.
Precautions:
- Like most brooms, its seeds and above-ground parts contain alkaloids and must not be consumed. Its traditional use is for dyeing, not food.
Sowing advice:
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Exposure: full sun, in warm or temperate climates — this is essential for abundant flowering.
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Soil: poor, dry, sandy or stony, well-drained, preferably acidic to neutral. As a legume, it fixes nitrogen from the air itself: do not enrich the soil, as rich soil will make it produce leaves without flowering. It dislikes standing moisture.
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Method: its seed coat is very hard. Soak the seeds for 48 hours in cold water, or lightly scarify them with a file, before sowing in spring in a deep pot. See how to sow your seeds.
Planting advice:
- Transplant it while young into its permanent position: like all brooms, it tolerates transplantation very poorly once established. A deep pot is essential for its taproot.
Care advice:
- Minimal maintenance; no watering is needed once established. Lightly prune after flowering, never cutting into old wood, which will not regrow.
Harvesting advice:
- For dyeing, harvest the flowering tips when in full bloom, in dry weather, and dry them in the shade.
Beneficial combinations:
- It shares the dry, poor-soil requirements of true lavender and heather, making it suitable for a rock garden or bank. As a legume, it naturally enriches the soil for neighbouring plants. See our drought-resistant plants.
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Its flowers possess a remarkable explosive mechanism: when a bumblebee lands on them, the stamens suddenly spring out and dust it with pollen. A spectacle that can be observed up close in the garden.
- It is a host plant for the caterpillars of several butterflies, particularly blues.
- Its deep root system stabilises banks and eroded soils while enriching them with nitrogen.
Uses:
- Borders, rock gardens, banks and dry gardens. A historic dye plant producing a clear yellow on wool and silk. A traditional medicinal plant. See our medicinal plants to sow.
Symbolism:
The broom, planta genista in Latin, gave its name to the Plantagenet dynasty: Geoffrey of Anjou wore a sprig of it on his helmet. It symbolises humility and perseverance.
Harvesting your own seeds:
Leave a few pods to turn brown on the plant, but harvest them before they burst: when ripe, they twist suddenly and project their seeds several metres away. See how to store your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose reproducible, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, with no chemical treatments. Our belief: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
Grow a historic, robust and luminous dye plant.
