Annual / color · North Texas care guide
Ipomoea batatas
Nursery Pro tip: Spills out of pots and covers bare beds by July. Margarita (lime) and Blackie.
A fast trailing foliage vine in chartreuse, deep purple-black or variegated, spilling three to six feet out of a pot or running across a bed by midsummer. No flowers to speak of — it's all leaf color, and it is the most useful 'spiller' in container planting.
Full sun to part shade; chartreuse types hold color best with some afternoon shade, dark types want sun. Any bed or potting mix. Space 18–24 in apart in beds; one plant per large container edge.
April or May, once warm. Root Stimulator at planting, mulch in beds.
Regularly — two or three times a week in beds, daily in pots in midsummer. It wilts dramatically and recovers.
Slow-release at planting; light feeding after that. Rich feeding makes it swallow its companions.
Cut it back whenever and wherever you like — it takes hard trimming and regrows in days. Trim it off neighbors in a mixed pot every couple of weeks.
Its vigor in a mixed container, where it can smother the other plants. Sweet potato weevil and flea beetles chew leaves; the tubers it forms underground are edible in theory and not worth eating. Frost kills the top.
Container 'spiller' under purple fountain grass, petunias or hibiscus. In beds, chartreuse against purple loropetalum or Persian shield.
Written for Rockwall's black clay, heat and winters by the Landscape Source team. Every yard is different — bring a photo by, or ask LS-Ai, and we'll tailor it to your spot.