Sweet Potato Vines!

Host Bee on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

Creative Container Gardens and My Latest Obsession - Sweet Potato Vines!

I am far from a master gardener, but I’ve always enjoyed planting colorful flowers in containers around my patio and on my front steps. But in the past few years, my selections have gotten a little predictable - geraniums (red and white), marigolds (yellow), trailing ivy and occasionally a little bit of something purple! I don’t even know the name of the purple one!

This spring, though, something new caught my eye and I was instantly fixated on finding out the name of this chartreuse, almost lime colored vine! I called a friend who is fabulous with plants and flowers and sent her to the site of my observation! A day later, I had my answer – the bright vine that was a perfect foil for colored flowers was a “sweet potato vine.”

I was fortunate that one trip to my local garden shop produced not only the bright lime vine, called “Margarita,” but also the dark purple variety referred to as “Blackie.” I added both to the planters on my front steps and loved how the crisp colors popped against both my usual floral plantings and my black pots!

Sweet potato vine can tolerate full to part sun, making it a very versatile perennial. For more detailed information on hardiness, spacing, and height, check out this great website for gardeners, www.davesgarden.com. If you can’t purchase sweet potato vine in your area, www.wrightgardens.com sells these plants via the internet and was the only vendor I found with a 100% positive rating! And it seems to me that if you are mailing live greenery around the country, 100% satisfaction is hard to come by! As a last resort, I read somewhere that a 5^th grade science class grew their own sweet potato vines right from the potato itself!!!

Even if you don’t update your garden with these fabulous vines this summer, make a note for next year and get ready to enjoy some bright and updated window boxes and planters!

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