Sweet Potato Vine Lime

Ipomoea batatas

Characteristics

Culture

Sweet Potato Vine Lime is a tender perennial that is winter hardy to USDA Zones 8-10. Best leaf color usually occurs in full sun. Ipomoeas are great additions to combination planters, but they can sometimes overwhelm less vigorous plants. If you prefer to keep a more balanced look to your combination planters, you can cut back or remove stems at any time. Vigorous, trailing, mounded growth with vibrant lime foliage.  Vibrant lime foliage leans to gold in the sun, pale green in partial shade. Heart-shaped leaves cover this vigorous grower. Great in containers, typically grown as a summer annual.

Noteworthy Characteristics

Ipomoea batatas, the ornamental sweet potato, has been bred to produce good leaves and no tubers.  Although tubers do form, they are composed of almost pure starch and no sugar, making them a poor choice for eating. So yes you can eat the tubers, but don’t expect anyone to come back for seconds! Also always be careful when eating any ornamental plant unless you know how it was grown, and if pesticides or fungicides were used on it before you got it; a tuber is a storage root, and yes they store chemical as well as starch. Commercial sweet potatoes have been bred for over 100 years selecting for those with the best sugar to starch content (hence the name SWEET Potato).

Problems

No serious insect or disease problems. Fungal leaf diseases are somewhat common, particularly if plants are grown in the same garden area year after year. Watch for thrips and flea beetles.

Garden Uses

Species cultivars are ornamental subtropical vines that are most often used as sprawling ground covers or as foliage contrasts grown to hang down over the edge of containers or window boxes, beds, and borders.

Because of its trailing habit of growth, it is ideally suited for use as a ‘spiller’ in the ‘spiller-thriller-filler’ container combination; plant it near the edges where it can spill gracefully over the pot. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.