Sweet Potato Bine

Anyone who s gardened in containers for long knows the magic formula for an effective container you need a thriller upright showy plant fillers mounding plants on the sides and spillers trailing plants that cascade over the sides.

Sweet potato bine.

This heat loving perennial will die back if the plant experiences hard freezes below 32 degrees fahrenheit 0 c. Ornamental sweet potato vines are in the same family as edible sweet potatoes and are in fact the same species. Gardeners turn to the sweet potato vine for its ability to power through just about anything while bringing interesting shapes sizes and colors to a pot or plot. Sweet potato vines the best spillers ever.

One of the easiest ways to create multi seasonal interest in the garden is to use plants with interesting foliage. Yet the tubers and even the plant in some cases are easy to save for another. It does best in full sun and warm weather temperatures should remain above 55ºf before planting outside. Sweet potato vine does well in containers where it is a common spiller plant.

Give them well draining soil whether they are grown in pots or in the ground. There s multiple ways to use sweet potato vine in your landscape. Sweet potato vine grows practically anywhere from full sun to full shade. Sweet potato vine ipomoea batatas named for its edible cousin is an ornamental warm season annual grown for its attractive leaves and vining habit the foliage lends a tropical feel to the garden and comes in a range of colors and varying forms.

A vigorous annual or a tender perennial it takes off in summer heat. Typically used as spillers in containers they also make fantastic groundcovers typically spreading 4 to 6 feet. Ipomoea butatas or sweet potato vine thrives in hot tropical climates and is an ornamental foliage plant often used as a foil for flowering displays. If the ground stays too wet for too long sweet potato vine may rot and die.

Where to plant sweet potato vine. In containers make sure there are adequate drainage holes. They are bred for the beauty of their leaves rather than edible tubers and the vines from these plants make them look more like a morning glory or clematis than a member of the potato family. Some of the older varieties may even grace your garden with a few sporadic lavender blooms that look like a slightly more tubular morning glory and for good.

Care of sweet potato plants. The ornamental varieties are simply cultivars of the species plant. For a similar trailing effect you can plant your sweet potato vines in pots or hanging baskets. They also thrive in heat.

The plant grows best in moist well drained soil. Sweet potato plants can provide a beautiful low ground cover in planters that will trail out over the edge. Varieties of this type of sweet potato may bear black chartreuse or multicolored leaves.