Plant Portrait - Caragana arborescens Pea Tree

This article originally appeared in the Jan 1998 edition of the Friends of PFAF newsletter.

The Siberian pea tree is a deciduous shrub that can grow up to 6 metres tall but in practice seldom exceeds about 3 metres. It produces a lentil-size edible seed that can be used in all the ways that lentils are used and has a great potential as a perennial legume in Britain.

A very undemanding plant, it succeeds in most well-drained soils, preferring full sun and light sandy dry or well-drained conditions. It tolerates very alkaline soils and will also do well in very poor conditions and on marginal land. This is because it has a symbiotic relationship with certain soil bacteria, these bacteria form nodules on the roots and fix atmospheric nitrogen. Some of this nitrogen is utilized by the growing plant but some can also be used by other plants growing nearby. Thus this is a very good companion plant in woodland and other integrated plantings.

A very cold-tolerant plant, it can withstand temperatures down to about -30°c. It prefers a continental climate with long hot summers and cold fairly dry winters, and does not grow so well in areas that do not have very cold winters. Thus it grows and fruits very well in the eastern half of the country, even in northern areas, though it does not do so well in the wetter west. The young growth in spring, even on mature plants, is frost-tender and so it is best to grow the plants in a position sheltered from the early morning sun.

The Siberian pea shrub has an excellent potential to become a staple food crop. The seed is nutritious and wholesome, although rather small it is often very freely borne and is easily harvested. Indeed, once the plant is established, harvesting is about the only work you will ever have to do with it! This species usually crops very well in Eastern Britain, the pods containing 4 - 6 seeds are produced in small clumps and are easy to harvest. The flavour is fairly bland, which is an advantage in staple foods since they are then very versatile and can be used in many ways according to which flavourings you add to them. We use them in all the ways that we use lentils, they can also be ground into a powder and used as a protein-enhancing addition to cereal flours. Indeed, the seeds contain up to 36% protein as well as about 12% fats and reasonable quantities of carbohydrate.

The Siberian Pea tree is sometimes grown as a hedge, it is fairly wind-resistant and so can be used to provide some shelter - though it is fairly bare in the winter and will not provide so much shelter at this time. The plant has an extensive root system and so has also been used for erosion control, especially on marginal land where its ability to enrich the soil with nitrogen will encourage the growth of other plants.

Propagation is by seed. This needs to be pre-soaked for about 24 hours in warm water, by which time it should have swollen considerably, and can then be sown in a cold frame in the spring. Germination usually takes place within 2 - 3 weeks and plant should be ready for planting out in the following spring. They should start to crop by the time they are 5 - 8 years old.

Database

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Readers Comments

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Tammy Sun Jul 3 2005

Does this plant close in the evening and open fully in the morning sun and does it have little thorns in the middle of the stalk?? Thanks Trying ot identify my sons school experiment Delag5@aol.com

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

LISETTE SAVOIE Mon Oct 3 2005

how to prune it and when

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Woodsmill@columbus.rr.com Fri May 5 2006

Is this a good deco plant for corner of house, or will it spread out like a bush? Any difference between the walking and weeping??

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

grant belau Thu Jul 6 2006

can one eat the pod raw, or just the peas, or must it be cooked? thanks. also-how the heck does your search engine produce no hits for 'seabuckthorn' ?

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Sun Jan 14 2007

Eat the whole pod when young, mature fruit is best when the peas are cooked (or so I have read, I will begin growing it myself this year)

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Ken Fern, Plants for a Future Sun Mar 4 2007

Answers to previous questions:- Caragana needs little or no pruning. Any dead wood can be removed in the spring, if you feel that any other pruning is necessary then this is best done after flowering. Their are some upright, pendulous and dwarf forms that are narrow enough to be grown near a house, though other forms are more spreading and would be unsuitable. Suitable forms could include the dwarf 'Nana', the weeping form 'Pendula' and the graceful 'Lorbergii', which will need considerable pruning to keep it small. The seeds and the pods are usually eaten cooked. The reason that the search 'seabuckthorn' produced no hits is because it should be two words, 'sea buckthorn'.

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Sheila Parry Mon Apr 30 2007

Where can I buy this Pea tree? I live in Monmouthshire, South Wales.

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Ruth Beard Mon May 14 2007

In the prairies of Alberta, Canada, we had caragana bushes, back in the early 1920's, but we did not know about eating the seeds. Now I live in North Carolina mountain area and I have not found any gardening store that has ever heard of this bush. Any chance they could be grown here - it seldom gets down to below zero and then not for long. I'm curious as to whether this shrub is still evident in the Airdrie-Irricana area, or anywhere in the Canadian prairies.

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Ken Fern, Plants for a Future Thu May 17 2007

Caragana arborescens has become naturalised in several States in the United States. On the east side of America, the furthest south it has managed to become naturalised is Maryland, whilst on the west coast it is found as far south as California and is also found in much of central Aerica from ontana down to New Mexico. In addition, we also grow it here in Cornwall, England, though it is not fully happy with our moist climate - it grows much better on the drier eastern side of this country. I'm not sure what your annual rainfall is, but if it is not too high then I feel you have a good chance of being able to grow it. The easiest way of doing this is to obtain seed - the plants will only take a few years to get to a reasonable size and start producing their own seed (ours did it in their 4th year). Seed can be obtained from several sources on the internet. I'm not sure which American seed companies supply it, though an internet search should reveal this for you. Alternatively, the following seed companies usually supply it. B&T World Seeds http://www.b-and-t-world-seeds.com/ Chiltern Seeds http://www.edirectory.co.uk/chilternseeds/

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Lori Thu Jun 14 2007

It is June 14, and my caragana is still not blooming. I bought and planted it last year. If I break off a spicule (?) it has some green inside it, but otherwise does not look like it's going to do anything. I live in N.D., have seen others at nurseries that are blooming, so am I to assume it has not made it through our winter? Thanks for any info!

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Grant Belau Mon Jun 18 2007

Answer to Ruth. I live NE of Airdrie-Irricana (Gadsby-near Stettler) and can confirm that Caraganas grow wild and abundant in Central Alberta.

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Janet K. Schoeberlein Sun Jul 1 2007

I have large bushes and have tried to harvest the pods, but it is hard to get enough together to eat as dried beans. You have to pick the pods and contain them because they will pop out of the pods. Maybe somebody can tell me how to harvest them. Thank you.

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Debbie Tue Aug 14 2007

I have a Pea tree (pendula variety) in my garden which has thrived for the past 3 years. In early August it began to lose its leaves from the center of the tree now all the branches are bare from the center My pea tree(pendula variety) has started to lose it's leaves from the center of the tree working outwards until almost two thirds of all the branches are bare There is no sign of any pests. The tree has been in my garden for three years now and has trived up until August this year. Do you think the wet summer could have anything to do with it's current condition? Is there anything I can do? I have not pruned this tree at all even though some branches are touching the ground. Do you think it would be beneficial to prune it? Please could you advise.

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

David Wayne Thu Sep 6 2007

I have a Pea Shrub that is about 8 foot tall now. I would like to move it to a sunnyer location. Are they hard to transplant? Thank you for any help.

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Jim Wed Sep 12 2007

Now that is grows all over my yard due to its spawning of seeds, what is the best approach to kill it all?

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Addie Kinghorn Mon Nov 5 2007

Addie Mon Nov 5, 2007 - Omaha, Nebraska It would help to give a correct answer if I knew where the questions were coming from. There are some old questions. In answer to the transplanting. You need to cut off about half of the top to transplant. You can still transplant until the ground freezes.

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

KauLad Sat Nov 17 2007

Seedling trees can be purchased at Lawyer's Nursery out of Plains, Montana. I have purchased there for years and do recommend them highly. You may have to purchase more than you really need but the price is right.

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Norman Storch Tue Dec 18 2007

Has anyone tried to plant caragana as a plantation as opposed to a wind break? Hanna Alberta Canada

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

cohan Fri Jan 25 2008

condor, west central alberta, canada very shocking to me to hear of eating caragana! of course we had them on the farm growing up--central alberta--who didnt? we were always told they were poisonous, but i think they told us almost everything was poisonous to keep us from popping strange things in our mouths..... i understand you would need a bulldozer to get rid of them.... there certainly is a lot of fruit borne...major bee plant as well, i was afraid to go near them as a kid, there are thousands of flowers, thousands of bees on a large plant... i think if you want to harvest, you might want to prune regularly to keep it short enough to reach easily.. btw, temperatures here can go well below -30C, records are around the -45C mark, though i dont think we have hit that in some time...we are heading for some lows of -30 at least this coming week, for the first time this year..

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

cohan Fri Jan 25 2008

anyone thinking about caragana in the prairies should read this site--make sure you and your descendants for several hundred years really want the plant around...lol here in central alberta, i dont think it has escaped much, though certainly it spreads where planted..in drier areas it is an escape prob lem.. there may be non-suckering varieties to consider..

blog humorous comments on caragana invasiveness

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Margaret Fri Feb 8 2008

Cohan: our parents told us the same thing.. that didn't stop us though, but we always tried it in groups, in the event that we would be on the ground frothing at the mouth, there would be someone handy to call the doctor. We loved picking the pods, shelling them and throwing them at one another. Now that I know they are edible, I may plant one in my back yard in Alberta.

Caragana arborescens - Pea Tree

Dick Tue Feb 26 2008

Siberian pea shrub does well in central New York, where my wife and I planted a hedge of them back in 1986, buying seedlings from a nursery called St. Lawrence Nursery, located in northern New York. The nursery promoted them as producing seeds with high protein content, suitable for chicken feed or human consumption, even for edible sprouts. The nursery recommended them for hedges also. So, for all those reasons we planted a hedge containing some ten plants. The plants have done well, having attained a height of about 8 feet. I have pruned them at the tops a couple of times, just to keep the seed pods within reach, as well as pruned the numerous suckers at the base of individual plants. Some of the plants end up being a single trunk, while others have two or more stems. The spring flowers are numerous and pretty, attracting oodles of bees. The seed pods are equally numerous, and quite easy to harvest, although not all pods will be ripe at the same time. One needs to pick them just before they get too ripe, so else the harvesting action will cause the pods to explode and all seeds will be lost to the wind. The overwhelming difficulty with this plant as a food source is the incredibly arduous task of separating the seed from the pod. When dried, the pods are very sharp and don't easily split open, even with severe pounding (I put them into a five gallon bucket and beat the crap out of them with some type of pounding tool!). And, then comes the task of separating the released seed from the broken pods. My usual method of just pouring the whole works from one big bowl to another, while standing on the front porch during a windy day, does not work well, as the seeds, being so small, end up not weighing much more than the chaff of the pods. So, to date I haven't come up with a good way to winnow them without losing a fair amount of the seed. Anyone with suggestions about how better to thrash and winnow Siberian pea shrub pods please come forward!

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