Have you ever looked at a sweet potato during dinner and wondered what it looks like in its plant form? Well, look no further, for here you’ll learn all about the sweet potato vine… the ornamental sweet potato vine, that is!
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While it is the same species as its edible relative, ornamental sweet potato vines are bred for their incredible leaves rather than their tasty tubers. Purple vine plants are common, as are green, red, bronze, and even multicolored. With leaves that range from lacy to heart-shaped, and the occasional rare trumpet-shaped flower, these fast-growing ornamentals can provide a lush, eye-catching addition to your landscape.
Read on to learn more about how to grow sweet potato vine!
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Sweet Potato Vine Quick Care Guide
Types of Sweet Potato Vine
The sweet potato vine is available in many countries around the world. Some of the most popular ornamental vine types are documented here, but there are many more, and new varieties are being developed regularly. Most grow just as well in hanging baskets as they do on the ground.
Ipomoea batatas ‘Blackie’, ‘Blacky’
This purple sweet potato vine is so dark that it’s nearly black, hence the name. This vigorous and fast-growing cultivar is a popular variety which is known for its maple-like leaf shape. While the ornamental sweet potato plants don’t often flower, when Blackie does, it produces lavender or purple trumpet-like flowers.
Ipomoea batatas ‘Sweet Caroline’
This sweet potato vine variety is not just one coloration of plant, but includes five separate color options – yellowish green, red, purple, bronze, and light green varieties are available. Like Blackie, it has leaves which are reminiscent of maple leaves, and works extremely well as a ground cover.
Ipomoea batatas ‘Sweetheart’, ‘Sweet Caroline Sweetheart’
Where the Sweet Caroline variety and the Sweetheart varieties diverge is in their leaf shape – the Sweetheart variety of sweet potato vine has distinctly heart-shaped leaves which make for a beautiful display. Available in red, light green, or purple, it’s rapidly becoming a favorite!
Ipomoea batatas ‘Margarita’, ‘Marguerite’
In full sun, the Margarita sweet potato vine produces a bright chartreuse leaf with a hint of yellow, but if grown in the shade, it is deeper green in hue. It has a slight heart shape to its leaf structure, and tends to mound before spreading. It can be trained to a trellis, or grown in hanging baskets, and can reach heights of 6-9 feet once established.
Ipomoea batatas ‘Tricolor’
This variety is truly named – the tricolored leaves of this sweet potato vine are green with streaks of pink and white, giving it a distinct and unusual look when compared to other sweet potato vines. It tends to be a little less tolerant of cooler temperatures, and needs protection if the temperature drops too low. This makes a good container plant – while it’s still a quick grower, it’s not as fast as other cultivars, and it is gorgeous when trailing from a hanging basket.
Ipomoea batatas ‘Desana’
The Desana sweet potato vine tends to spread to become about four feet wide, and like the Sweet Carolines, it comes in multiple colors, often considered a tricolor sweet potato vine. Presently, ruddy bronze and lime green varieties are available.
Ipomoea batatas ‘Illusion’
With names like ‘Emerald Lace’, ‘Garnet Lace’, and ‘Midnight Lace’, the Illusion sweet potato vine cultivar is a popular strain. Smaller growing and a bit less vigorous than other varietals, these sweet potato vines are described as having a thread-leaf foliage and are more mounding than other types. They spread about 3 feet, making them perfect for hanging baskets.
Ipomoea batatas ‘SolarPower’ and ‘SolarTower’
The black version of the SolarPower is a purple sweet potato vine, and is deep purplish-black in hue. A rich lime green variant is available, as is a rusty bronze. SolarPower is one of the best performers in hot environments, growing to an average height of one foot and spreading about three feet wide. Where the SolarPower tends to mound and stay smaller, the related cultivar known as SolarTower lives up to its name. Well suited to trellis or arbor training, it can easily grow to a height of seven feet in a season, and is available in lime and black varieties.
Ipomoea batatas ‘Floramia Rosso’
This unusual ornamental sweet potato vine is known for its heart-shaped leaves which have shades of rose, brown, and bronze. It spreads to 4 feet or more.
Ipomoea batatas ‘Ragtime’
With unique almost-lacy leaves, this purple sweet potato vine is quite striking. It does quite well in the heat of the summer, and spreads about 3 feet.
Ipomoea batatas ‘Sidekick’
These sweet potato vine cultivars introduced in 2009 are more mounding than spreading, and are available in two shades. The lime green sweet potato vine tends to be lighter in color than Margarita, and the black is a deep purple sweet vine plant.
Planting Sweet Potato Vine
It’s actually quite easy to plant a sweet potato vine, and grow sweet potato vine too. Select a well-draining soil (test your soil if you’re unsure) and place it at the same depth that your potato vine seedling was at. It will take care of the hard work for you!
When to Plant Sweet Potato Vine
Most of the time, the sweet potato plant is planted in the spring. However, depending on your growing zone, it can be planted at other times of year. The one season in which it’s generally not advisable to plant sweet potato vines is the winter. As a tropical plant, it prefers warmer temperatures.
Where to Plant Sweet Potato Vine
There’s multiple ways to grow sweet potato vine in your landscape! Sweet potato plants can provide a beautiful low ground cover in planters that will trail out over the edge. For a similar trailing effect, you can plant your sweet potato vines in pots or hanging baskets. It can have the tendency to crowd other plants it’s planted with. To prevent this, you can trim your potato vine at any time to keep them from choking out the neighbors.
The varieties that climb are rapidly growing popularity in use along fences, over arbors, and on all types of trellises. They do require some support to get them started, but once they’ve filled out, you can have a leavy cover over your backyard patio or a fence coated with vibrantly-colored leaves.
People have started using sweet potato vine as an alternative to traditional lawns, since it spreads enough that it’s easy to turn it into a great ground cover. However, the large leaves are not as comfortable on bare feet, so it’s best to do this treatment in areas where children aren’t likely to play.
Caring For Sweet Potato Vine
For the most part, your sweet potato vines are independent and will take care of themselves, but here’s some helpful sweet potato vine care hints for best results. You may find growing sweet potato vine pretty simple, and you can even overwinter sweet potato vine!
Sun
While full sun is ideal, sweet potato vines tolerate partial to full shade as well. The sweet potato vine leaves may be differently colored in full shade conditions than they would be in full sun. However, in very hot climates, they can experience sunburn in extremely high temperatures (110+ degrees), so in the height of summer, it’s wise to provide a bit of shade cover for your plants.
Soil
Well-draining, moist soil is perfect for the sweet potato plant. If the ground is soggy for too long, sweet potato vines’ root system can develop rot, which will kill it. This applies to container plantings and in-ground plantings.
If your soil is highly alkaline (above 8.0 pH), you may wish to add an acid-forming fertilizer to bring the alkalinity down. Otherwise, fertilizing is really not necessary provided that your soil is well-balanced. You can fertilize on occasion to spur rapid growth, but otherwise it’s not necessary.
Water
Moderate watering is best. You want to keep the soil moist, but not wet or soggy.
Pruning
Sweet potato vines spread quite rapidly, so regular pruning is required. Pruning can be done at any time of year. It’s most needed during the spring and summer months when the weather is warm and the plants are growing fast.
Can sweet potato vines be divided? Sort of! If you are trying to train your sweet potato vines to fork out and create a thicker ground cover or to promote a mounding pattern, try to trim just above a place where there’s a pair of leaves, as it will encourage the potato vine to split in two at the leaf buds.
Propagation
The easiest way to propagate the sweet potato plant is through cuttings. Take cuttings from the main potato vine that are at least four inches long. Make sure that you trim the potato vine at a leaf node. Remove most of the leaves, leaving only a few at the potato vine tip, and place your cutting into a glass of water. While you can directly put it into potting soil, it roots more quickly in water and you can see the root development. Place the cutting in a warm and bright place out of direct sunlight. Once it’s gotten a good root mass, transplant into soil.
If you’ve seen children’s science experiments with a potato suspended on toothpicks over a bowl of water, you’ve seen an easy way to produce sprouts for cuttings – place enough water in a bowl so that it just touches the bottom of the tuber, and then wait. It will put down roots and will push up sprouts. When the potato vine is at least 4-5 inches long, use it for cuttings.
You can also overwinter sweet potato vine by storing the tubers in a box of sand or peat moss, and in the spring, they may start sprouting on their own. If they do, some have reported success with cutting sprouted slips from the tuber and planting those. Just be aware that sweet potato slips have a slightly larger chance of developing rot issues than starting with a fresh cutting.
Ornamental sweet potato vines don’t produce many flowers, which means they often don’t produce seeds. Many ornamentals are also sterile and only really viable to produce from cuttings. 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. Happily, a small sweet potato cutting can live indoors with a grow light or in a sunny window during cold months, so you can grow this plant inside in the winter.
Pests and Diseases
Now that we’ve discussed sweet potato vine care, let’s talk about the pests and diseases that sweet potato vines most commonly have.
Pests
The most destructive pest is the sweetpotato weevil, which targets the root system of sweet potato vines rather than the foliage. Similarly, wireworms, whitefringed beetle grubs, and white grubs can pose a major issue to the root structure.
Above ground, pesky flea beetles and cucumber beetles can eat portions of the foliage, but that’s of less concern as the plant is so quick to grow. The larvae of those two types of beetles could become a problem if they’re laid in the soil near your plant, so watch for changes in your plant which might indicate root attack. Whiteflies, thrips, and a few types of aphids have also been reported to attack the foliage.
In most of the above cases, insecticides are known to help. Spreading beneficial nematodes around your garden is also a reliable measure to combat grub and larvae development. However, the best way to avoid these pests is never to get them in the first place. In the case of the sweetpotato weevil or the sweet potato whitefly, for instance, you should be cautious with your root stock and make sure to get it from a reliable source so that your roots do not come already-infested. If you are unsure, definitely do not place any of the root stock in the ground directly. Instead, take cuttings from a sprouted root and transplant them to avoid spreading sweetpotato weevil in your garden.
Finally, in Australia, a surprising pest is the bush turkey. Reputedly, bush turkeys will scratch deeply around the potato vine while searching for grubs. If they reach a sweet potato tuber, they will happily eat that as well. So if you’re in an area where turkeys are common, or perhaps even chickens or other ground-scratching birds, keep an eye on your sweet potato vines to make sure you don’t have an avian rampage in progress!
Diseases
Sweet potatoes are known to be sensitive to rot issues, including root rot, stem rot, storage rot, and soft rot. The best prevention for these is to make sure the soil is well-drained and that the surface of the soil does not puddle. Some mottle and mosaic viruses are also typical, as are a few varieties of leaf spot.
Be cautious with herbicides near your sweet potato vines. Ornamental sweet potato vines are subject to amino acid (ALS) inhibitor herbicide injury. Herbicides that contain Imidazolinones, Sulfonylureas, and Triazolopyrimidine sulfonanilides can cause stunting in plants, leaf yellowing, and can result in slow plant death. It’s better to avoid using weedkillers near your sweet potato vines just to be safe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Are ornamental sweet potatoes edible?
A: First we should ask, sweet potato vine poisonous? No! Can they be eaten? Yes…if you don’t mind an awful-tasting sweet potato. Commercial varieties have been developed to form sweet, delicious tubers. Ornamental varieties don’t focus on tuber production, but instead on the foliage. Because of this, most ornamental sweet potato vines produce tubers that are purely starch with no sugar development. If you need it to survive, it is edible, but it’s certainly no replacement for what you buy at the supermarket! Similarly, while the leaves of commercial sweet potatoes are edible in salads and for other cooking uses while they’re young and tender, the ornamental varieties aren’t as tasty. They don’t have as many natural sugars in them, and can be bitter.
Q: Are there any other uses for sweet potato vine?
A: In South America, the juice of red sweet potatoes was used as a dye when mixed with lime juice. In Hawaii, where the plant is called ‘Uala, it’s used medicinally, and at least one variety was used as a fish bait. In Peru, Moche ceramics often have sweet potato tuber paste worked into the clay for color. Purple sweet potato juice has long been used for food coloring. In many cultures, all parts of the plant (leaves, stems, and roots) were used for animal fodder. And finally, researchers are beginning to investigate using sweet potato varieties to produce biofuel.
Q: How do you store sweet potato vine tubers?
A: Dust any loose soil off of the tubers. Take a sturdy cardboard box and fill it with peat moss, vermiculite, or sand, and gently press the tubers down into it. Take care to make sure they aren’t touching each other and that they’re thoroughly covered. Store the box in a cool, dark, and dry location where the tubers can’t freeze. In the spring, watch for the tubers to sprout, and transplant the sprouts. You can also try cutting slips from the tuber, each with a sprout, and replanting those.
So, are you interested in this beautiful trailing potato vine yet? It might not be the tastiest treat, but it’s certainly a feast for the eyes! With a myriad of colors and leaf shapes, the sweet potato vine may be your best bet for a lush landscape or a perfectly-planted hanging garden.
