Monday, August 02, 2010

Sweet Potato Vine 'Blackie'

I planted a sweet potato vine called 'Blackie' last spring. It has interesting dark purple to dark green to almost black, deeply lobed leaves. I love it's contrast with other plants. I was surprised to see that it had flowers on it a few weeks ago. It seems to send out a few new flowers every day. I don't think I have ever seen flowers on my sweet potato vines before. The flowers looked very much like morning glories to me. So I looked it up and found that it is indeed related to morning glories. It is in the family Convolvulaceae, just as morning glories are.



I only grow these for their colour and leaf form, and not for their tubers, which are said to be edible. I know that the squirrels dig them up in the fall and eat them. I think I will stick to the grocery store varieties. The seed pods are supposed to be highly toxic. But that's okay. I snap the spent flowers off so that the plant will produce more flowers. I love this little plant, even more so now that I know it produces flowers!

Family: Convolvulaceae. Genus: Ipomoea. Species: I. batatas 'Blackie'.
Common name: Sweet Potato Vine Blackie.

Edit: Wanda from Exuberant Color posted about her Blackie today too. You can see it here.


And here are a few spooltjes (klosjes) I sewed together last night. I still have a lot of these to go.

7 comments:

Linda said...

I also have the same sweet potato vine in my garden and did a post awhile back on the blooms. They certainly are very pretty.
Your spooltjes look very pretty and will make a lovely quilt.

Rinie said...

Dat zijn echt 'klosjes'. Nice.

I love 'Blackie'.

Weather for quilting?
Now is time to enjoy your beautiful new garden

Rinie.

Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson said...

what can I say, great minds think alike, LOL. I think the color of the flowers on the blackie is so pretty.

Great fabrics on your spools!

Barb said...

What a pretty vine, thanks for the interesting info.

Vicki said...

Well now I know that this is a sweet potato vine. I love the colours of it. I've seen them all around town and never knew what they were called. There is also a lime green version.

Opal said...

gorgeous flower!

dutchcomfort said...

I think that’s wonderful, growing a sweet potatoe bush for the colours of the leaves! Those flowers are an extra!

Your spoeltjes blokken look so sweet!