Siberian Pea Shrub (Caragana arborescens) is a perennial legume shrub. It fixes nitrogen from the air into the soil in a similar process to clover, alfalfa and beans. I have planted them along my garage where there is a bank consisting of sandy pit run used as fill upon which my garage is built.
Siberian Pea Shrub blooms with small yellow flowers that produce seed pods with small round seeds. The young pods and the seeds are edible. The seeds are very high in protein. The seeds can also serve as animal food.
Siberian Pea Shrub is very winter hardy. I was not able to fence my seedlings the first winter. The rabbits did not chew on them. I have not fenced them yet and still no rabbit damage! It appears to me that rabbits will not eat their bark even in the dead of winter.
Here is a link to a pdf on Siberia Pea Shrub put out by the USDA: https://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/pg_caar18.pdf
I purchased my Siberian Pea Shrubs from Burnt Ridge Nursery. Here is the weblink: http://www.burntridgenursery.com/SIBERIAN-PEA-SHRUB-Caragana-arborescens/productinfo/NSSPSHR/
Siberian Pea Shrub was introduced in the early 1900’s to help prevent soil erosion. It is considered to be invasive by the National Park Service. The Wisconsin DNR has it listed as a Restricted species.
Please note that many plants that are considered invasive in the USA are listed because they are capable of thriving in very poor soil conditions such as where top soil is missing and dry conditions.
OnlyFoods.net has a good write up of the characteristics and uses of Siberian Pea Shrub. Here is the weblink: https://www.onlyfoods.net/caragana-arborescens-siberian-pea-shrub.html
Below are photos of Siberian Pea Shrub from my backyard orchard.
