Medicago arborea is a native shrub of the Mediterranean Basin, where it grows wild on rocky shores. It is used as fodder for animals and apparently the leaves can be eaten in salads. I haven’t tried it yet… Like all Medicago, it can fix nitrogen in the soil.
It grows up to about 150 x 150 cm and blooms profusely with deeply yellow, vanilla-scented flowers, from February through May. If the faded flowers are trimmed in June it will re-flower in the fall. It likes full sun and, like almost all Mediterranean plants, a dry, poor, well-drained, and calcareous soil.
Medicago arborea is very drought tolerant (code secheresse 4). If the summer heat is intense, it may drop its leaves, but they will come back as soon as the fall rains come. It is also frost hardy down to -10 à -12 °C in well-drained soil.
I planted our Medicago arborea in December 2023 and despite a trim in 2024, it has already grown to an impressive 125 cm. This June it suffered from an exceedingly sticky invasion of black aphids. I cut off all the fading flower ends and sprayed it with “savon noir”, which took care of the problem.
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