We have been searching for seeds of the Siberian Pea Tree (Caragana arborescens) for years. Permies in North America and Europe rave about this plant for it’s hardiness, growth, nitrogen fixing and forage capabilities. But find it in Australia, we could not. Until we found Phoenix Seeds!
Phoenix Seeds is a little seed company in Tasmania. Their catalog is awesome. They have no website. They seem ardently and unashamedly old-school. And I love them to bits. Because they, unlike every other Australian seed company I’ve talked to, stock Siberian Pea Shrub seeds…
Siberian Pea shrub is similar to Honey Locust (no spikes tho, which is great) in many ways, but the reason we’ve been searching for it is because it is a great addition to Milkwood Farm, for the following attributes:
- Drought hardy
- Frost hardy
- Puts up with crappy soil
- Nitrogen fixing
- Fast growing
- Chicken forage
- Edible peas (they make great dahl, apparently)
- Deciduous (yay biomass + soil creation)
So there you have it. It won’t replace our fabulous acacias range, nor the tagasaste, nor the honey locusts. But it will hopefully be another addition of a very multifaceted, useful tree that will help build Milkwood into an amazing, fertile place.
You can read more about the delights of the Siberian Pea Tree at Plants for a Future.
Related articles on Milkwood.net:
- Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture – book review
- Seed Balls: how to grow trees without really trying
- Forest Garden posts
Great to know they are still going! I used them in the 80’s.
It’s nice when you find something you’ve been looking for 🙂
What are they like in terms of ‘weed’ capabilities ie do they stay within their spot or do they spread faster than might be good, if that makes sense?
How is it nitrogen-fixing? Does it form a relationship with introduced rhizobia in your soil, or is it supplied with rhizobia?
yep, symbiotic relationship with nitrogen fixing soil bacteria via root nodules: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen-fixing_nodules
Grab those Saskatoon seeds too, like blueberries on a tree.
Ok will do. All the saskatoon berries i had in Canada were pretty average, but willing to try ’em if you’ve had god ones, Harris!
Kirsten, it was to my understand that native rhizobia (to the plant) had to be present in the soil, which is why seed is often sold inoculated. Does the seed come supplied with inoculant? If not, the question remains, how will it nitrogen-fix? I’m struggling to find information regarding nitrogen-fixing in alien environments, most information always referw back to inoculating with native rhizobia to the host plant.
Or am I way off base here?
Ah right gotcha. Well, i can only speak from experience on this one, as we’ve struggled to find similar info. – For some species (broad beans), the bacteria have just shown up and the nodules have duly appeared, even with un-inoculated seed. Maybe we were just lucky – dunno. – For some species (casuarina – she-oak) we’ve grown a bunch of them and then seen which ones do well. We’ve then taken soil from underneath the healthy ones and made a tea of sorts with that soil and watered the not-so-healthy casuarina’s with it, which has seemed to work –… Read more »
We need a plant/soil biologist to chime in. For some reason, I’m intrigued by the relationship and how permaculturalists use the term ‘nitrogen-fixing’ when it may not be entirely true. According to that link you posted, there are twenty-something strains of rhizobia so there may be a chance that they overlap across continents (slimmer on this island perhaps). Another piece of information is that plants will form relationships with multiple strains, preferring the better one so maybe some foreign fixers don’t fix as well as they could. As for nodules, acacia will form them in sterile potting mix (from experience)… Read more »
Love me some Phoenix Seeds. Unfortunately, being a poor uni student I don’t get to support operations like this as much as I’d like. Still, I got the latest catalogue in the mail without having to request it llast year and it was the best surprise!
Thanks been looking for a source for these! How have they performed? Any updates much appreciated 🙂
I know this is an older post, it seems as though Phoenix seeds shut down years ago. Do you have any idea where I might be able to buy some Siberian pea tree seeds?
Sorry, Damo, we don’t have a lead for you on that anymore – though we’ve heard of friends finding the seeds for sale on ebay, and also Etsy?