Sweet Potato Vine Flower

A vigorous annual or a tender perennial it takes off in summer heat.

Sweet potato vine flower.

Typically used as spillers in containers they also make fantastic groundcovers typically spreading 4 to 6 feet. While it does produce edible sweet potato tubers albeit not very palatable and bitter the ornamental variety bears more colorful foliage making it a popular houseplant. Edible sweet potato vines and some ornamental varieties bloom with flowers that resemble morning glories in shape but some ornamental sweet potato vines do not flower according to missouri. Many ornamentals are also sterile and only really viable to produce from cuttings.

One of the easiest ways to create multi seasonal interest in the garden is to use plants with interesting foliage. The ornamental varieties are simply cultivars of the species plant. The ornamental sweet potato plant ipomoea butatas is somewhat different from its southern grown vegetable sibling. 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.

Ornamental sweet potato vines don t produce many flowers which means they often don t produce seeds. While you may be able to coax your plant into producing sweet potato vine seeds they aren t guaranteed to be good so it s best to propagate in other ways.