Pinto Peanut 5 barerooted plants

The Hardest Working Groundcover in the Tropical Garden

There are groundcovers, and then there is Pinto Peanut. Arachis pintoi is a low-growing, creeping perennial legume that does more useful work per square metre than almost any other plant you can put in the ground — and it does all of it while producing a dense, cheerful carpet of bright yellow flowers that looks deliberately planted rather than merely functional.

What It Does

The list of things Pinto Peanut contributes to a garden or orchard is genuinely remarkable. It fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere and delivers it to the soil. It mines potassium from depth — research at the Alstonville Tropical Fruit Research Centre in northern NSW found a threefold increase in soil potassium just two years after introduction, a significant finding given that potassium is the most expensive major mineral in commercial soil management. It adds calcium and phosphorus. It suppresses broadleaf weeds by outcompeting them without the need for herbicide. It protects the soil surface from erosion, improves soil structure, and tolerates competition from grass.

It also tolerates low mowing, requires essentially no maintenance once established, and has been increasingly adopted by landscapers as a grass substitute and by local councils for garden bed plantings where a low-maintenance, attractive groundcover is needed.

In the Orchard

Pinto Peanut has long been a favourite cover crop in tropical orchards precisely because it does not compete with tree crops for moisture — research confirmed this specifically — while delivering a substantial, ongoing supply of soil nutrients to the feeder roots of fruit trees. Plant it under your Soursop, Marang, Breadnut or Bilimbi and it works quietly and continuously to improve the growing conditions for everything above it.

One More Thing

Chickens and ducks find the little yellow flowers irresistible. If you run poultry in your orchard or garden, Pinto Peanut provides them with a supplementary forage that they will return to repeatedly — another practical virtue from a plant that seems determined to justify its existence in every possible way.