Vietnamese Coriander and my Chilean Guavas

 Added a new plant to my collection this week - Vietnamese Coriander. 

On Wednesday I went to a garden show with mum organised by The Red Cross. It was a lovely little show set in the grounds of an old manor house with a walled Victorian garden to walk around as well (more on that another time). The stalls were made up of lots of local specialist nurseries so it was nice that there were no "big brands" there and the stall owners really knew their stuff.

I got talking to the owners of The Cottage Herbery about my dislike for growing coriander. Although I love the taste, it bolts so easily it's hardly worth growing, when ever I want it its run to seed. I was enquiring if they had a herb called Papalo or knew where I could get seeds in the UK from, this is meant to be a great alternative with a similar taste but the plant grows much bigger before if flowers (between three and five feet I think) so you get a much longer harvest, used a lot in Mexican cooking. 

She didn't have this but wrote down my details and of the herb to look for it and said that a good alternative they sell is Vietnamese coriander which gets bigger than normal coriander before going to flower. It's unusual for me to buy a herb instead of seeds but I did as I quite fancied trying this, apparently its easy to take cutting from so I'll be doing that later to propagate my own plants from it and hopefully I'll get some seed as well to plant if it's any good.

Last year when I got them in May

 I also had a comment on a post I'd written last may about when I bought my Chilean guavas, asking what they were like, how they grew and how they did over winter. 

What they look like now

We had quite a mild winter so it's not been the hardest test for them but they've all pulled through. I simply stored them in an unheated greenhouse and made sure I watered them as they needed it. As you can see the plants have grown like crazy in a year and measure about two foot high with a really good spread.

Read about the fruit amazing tasting fruit here.

 I took a couple of cutting last summer and they both rooted easily and have started to grow well. I'm planing to take lots more cuttings this year and I might experiment with growing them in the ground and not bringing them in. They seem to grow so fast that I think they'd make great hedging in a sheltered place (which we aren't in) and because of the fast growth it's not the end of the world if I loose a few plants, I'll make sure that I over winter a few in the greenhouse still. Maybe a small border in front of my new porch when I finish building it!  

Cuttings I took last summer doing well.

Who else is growing Chilean Guavas? Anyone grown one from seed?

Also how does everyone else stand on coriander? Any other suggestions for alternatives?