My Life In Brooklyn

This is the Latin name for the Sweet Potato Vine, a plant gracing most all Brooklyn streets these days.  The gorgeous foliage adds color and the lengthy vines (some of mine are 6 feet long at this point) add a sense of life and vitality to the garden — as if they really want to be there.  They definitely show the strength of botanic life in a brick and concrete world.

Last year I saved the tubers the bright lime green plants produced and was able, after a slight struggle, to get them growing again this spring. However, at one point in this growing season, thinking the tubers were never going to sprout again, I also ordered 6 plants of three varieties from Park Seed (”Blackie”, a deep purple; a pink/maroon color and the typical chartreuse green).   I am hoping there will be many tubers to harvest in order to avoid a similar purchase in 2007.

These plants have been growing at an amazing rate, managing to actually deal very well with the horrible heat wave of last week.   I have one empty container remaining and was thinking of rooting some cuttings to see how much they would grow between now and the end of the season.  These plants propagate so easily: snip off a vine, bury it and keep it watered – usually within a week you will see new growth.

And so I was eyeing the front yard container of Ipomoea for the purpose of acquiring some cuttings for the empty container and was very surprised to see the “blackie” variety in bloom.  Okay, it is only one blossom thus far, tucked into the foliage cascading over the stairs. Having a container filled with similarly colored impatiens next to this plant, I nearly overlooked it.  I will keep watch for more flowers and hopefully seed pods will form.

Purdue states “flowers rare, especially in United States, like common morning glory, white or pale violet, axillary, funnel-shaped, borne singly or in cymes on short peduncles; pods round; seeds 1–4 per pod…”

As a novice gardener I can’t state whether flowering is actually rare, however my Ipomoea batatas have never blossomed before and it is kind of cool to see this in my own front yard!  Looking at the flower, you can see the similarity to the flowers of Ipomoea’s cousin, the Morning Glory.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 10:45 am and is filed under Brooklyn, Gardening. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.