Ornamental Sweet Potato Vine Flower

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.

Ornamental sweet potato vine flower.

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. This heat loving perennial will die back if the plant experiences hard freezes below 32 degrees fahrenheit 0 c. Popular varieties like marguerite have small round tubers while varieties like blackie have longer narrower tubers. The foliage lends a tropical feel to the garden and comes in a range of colors and varying forms.

Often grown in container gardens for its trailing stems of purple chartreuse or variegated foliage ornamental sweet potato vine is actually related to the sweet potatoes you d grow in your vegetable garden. Ornamental sweet potato vine ipomoea batatas is valued for its colorful foliage and rapid easy care growth habits. Sweet potato vine ipomoea batatas named for its edible cousin is an ornamental warm season annual grown for its attractive leaves and vining habit. While the ornamental sweet potato plants don t often flower when blackie does it produces lavender or purple trumpet like flowers.

That means the tubers it forms are actually edible.