Plant · P-624

Vietnamese Coriander

Persicaria odorata

Vietnamese Coriander tastes like cilantro with a peppery bite behind it, and its real trick is timing - it keeps producing usable leaf through hot weather that makes true coriander bolt and quit, so growing both together covers a season neither covers alone. It spreads by rooting stems wherever they touch damp ground, quickly knitting into a low mat at a pond edge, bog bed or wet swale margin, and just as quickly running through a mixed herb bed if it is not given a hard edge or standing water to stop it. Cuttings root in a glass of water within days, so a start costs nothing. It is frost-tender and needs constant moisture, so it is grown as an annual or overwintered indoors wherever winter freezes the ground.