Feel free to tie it up, then prune later. It might be best to put a stake near it to tie it to, however.

Same thing has happened to my two Lena's. Although at this point I think it's mostly the weight of the wet, open flowers weighing the brances down.

What have been people's experiences in pruning these things? I've read conflicting reports about cutting into old wood. I've been lax in pruning mine (about 3 years old and need it) and am not sure what I'll try. Maybe prune most of the brnaches halfway down int o the "green" wood and cut a few back much further down and hope for the best.

Larry

Hmm..
Mine is only 2 years old and glorious. I had to stake it last year, which is still in place. It's about 3' tall, but wider this year. I had no idea one should prune them!

I recall years ago my aunt had one. It flopped over, so she tied it to the fence. It's all good.

Mine is 'Garnet' and living up to its name! Yeah!
Christine

Here's a picture from year 2. They've now grown up a bit and the bottom 12-18 inches is old wood and looks leggy. If I had been pruning all along it might have delayed this problem a bit.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1048521}}

G'Day!
Beautiful! Thanks for the link!
happy gardening,
-vlad

a great resource for pruning: www.plantamnesty.org.

PRUNING BY HABIT

II. MOUNDS

Look like mounds and are medium-tough plants, found in mass plantings. They have small leaves and supple branches. You usually just want to tidy them up or reduce their size. People like to shear these -- don't you! Examples of mounds are abelias, escallonia, barberries and broom. orange. Locate the longest, most unruly branch. Grab the tip with your left hand. Follow the branch down into the interior of the plant with your right-hand pruners, and snip it off two inches to one foot below the general surface level of your shrub. Cut to a side branch or bud, if possible.

These shrubs often benefit from taking out some of the old canes to their base. This opens up and renews the shrub. Any dead wood or weeds should also be removed.

Arent the flowers beautiful on the broom plant.Mine is blooming now.I liked it for its different look surprise it bloomed

I think I let my scotch broom get really ill. It looks all dead and dried out. The base of the plant still looks green and when I cut some twigs off it is still green undeneath. do you think I killled it?

I've had difficulty staking mine, over the last couple of years -- they get buried by the snowplows, and have too many stems for a stake in the center to do much. I think now I'm going to try using three or four stakes, and weaving them with wire or twine. So far the only pruning needed has been removing dead bits. They have grown back well even with significant top damage, as Sally hopefully knows by now...

Hi drtynails,
The storm also caused damage to my garden and prompted me to look up alternative plants.
I found a surprise, though. I learned that Scotch Broom is actually considered highly invasive in several states. Just a quick look online turned up problems with this plant in WA, CA, OR, WI, and parts of Canada.

I think I'm going to remove the 2 plants that I have because it also appears that the plant won't support local insects and it has a skin irritant (saponins) - I'm already allergic to the poison ivy in my yard, I don't want more problems!