Hedysarum mongolicum Seeds | Mongolian Sweetvetch
LATIN NAME: Hedysarum mongolicum
COMMON NAME: Mongolian Sweetvetch
Plant Profile
Known to gardeners as Mongolian Sweetvetch, Hedysarum mongolicum is a perennial in the pea family, native to dry, sunny places of the central and eastern Asia, while it is treasured for its fine, tough, soil-building form. In pea family it is pink-spiked, nitrogen-fixing sweetvetch of dry steppe, a plant that holds loose ground and feeds soil as it flowers. At maturity it stands about Sixty centimetres. Add these qualities together and you have a species well worth a place in the garden.
Science & Biotechnology
Hedysarum mongolicum sits in the pea family, a group that keeps botanists, horticulturists and plant breeders busy with questions of classification, adaptation and ornamental potential. The Mongolian sweetvetch holds a recognised place in steppe-ecology papers of the central Asia, and soil scientists have studied both nitrogen-fixing partnership of its roots and deep, binding roots that hold loose, dry ground. In the laboratory and trial ground alike, it serves as workable material for propagation research and line selection.
Uses & Benefits
Mongolian Sweetvetch works well in borders, containers and dedicated beds. In dry garden, the Mongolian sweetvetch is pink-spiked plant that feeds the ground. Its spikes of small flowers feed bees, its flat pods feed birds, and low, spreading, tough growth holds dry slope. It has served pasture, reclamation and dry garden, and it grows well in sandy, well-drained ground of sunny, open spot. Thereafter it wants only the ordinary attentions any garden plant receives.
Sweetvetches are important forage and honey legumes, and Hedysarum polybotrys, Hong Qi, is a recognized regional cousin of astragalus in Chinese tonic medicine.
Growing from Seed
Starting Mongolian Sweetvetch from seed is simple and satisfying. Fill a pot with a light seed compost, sow evenly on the surface, cover thinly and stand it somewhere warm, bright and evenly moist. When the young plants are big enough to handle, space them into pots or a nursery row and let them size up before their final move.
Our Take
Mongolian Sweetvetch repays a little patience at sowing time with plenty of garden presence later.
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