Lo Lot – Piper sarmentosum – Cuttings

Lo Lot is a perennial vegetable from southeast Asia. This sprawling plant comes from the same genus as black pepper and the vines look similar to the untrained eye. The leaves are eaten raw or cooked, sometimes used to wrap certain food items before cooking in certain cuisines. The leaves have a fairly strong flavor that is hard to describe, finding themselves somewhere on the spectrum of vegetable and herb. We have never incorporated this leaf into our diet much but there are probably foods where it tastes great.

Be warned, this can a very rambunctious plant. In dappled shade with water access it forms a dense ground cover. In optimal conditions it can grow a thick mat that grows knee high or even higher. The plant slowly runs in all directions and is very competitive with anything else low growing. I found out the hard way that this plant is hard to remove once a colony establishes, with stems rooting deeply anywhere they touch. This plant can grow in shady conditions where other plants don’t thrive and have beautifully ornamental foliage. It can plug into a shady corner of the garden that isn’t useful for much else. We recommend choosing an area where the spread can be easily controlled, such a a vegetation island with walking paths around it.

This plant grows very readily from cuttings (maybe too readily at times). This listing is for 8 bare root cuttings.