A bunch of pine needles looked pretty appealing and the green needles definitely did a decent job but they became very brittle when dried.
Then, a snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) bush caught my eye. I wasn't quite sure how it would dry but its fine opposite twigs looked like a great potential broom. So I collected a dozen or so branches, at least a foot long, with the finest most feathery twigs I could find.
I stripped off the remaining leaves (I picked them in the fall after most leaves had already fallen) and then wrapped the bottom 2 inches of the main stalks together with a piece of string. It looked a lot more like a bushy mess than a proper brush so I had the idea of setting a bunch of heavy books on top of the twigs in an attempt to flatten them.
After about a week, it worked! The branches had all dried flat and kept that shape even after use. And, the dried branches remained incredibly flexible. A little trimming job with pruners to make it into a nice shape and we had a great brush!
We also made a larger version of this so that a little 3-year old we know could sweep the floor alongside her mom. I collected stalks at least 3 feet long so that together they would form a handle about 1.5 inches in diameter. I tied the end of the stalks together with a piece of dogbane cordage and did the same just before they started branching out heavily. Then I had read that in order for the broom to be wide and even the branches needed to be spread out into three bunches, as shown in the picture below. Then I flattened the whole thing for a week under a pile of books and trimmed the end of the branches so that they looked like a proper broom.
I haven't tried this yet but my idea if I had to make it into an adult-size broom would be to add a long straight stick in the middle of the snowberry stalks, tied in the same two locations as they are now.
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