Daily Dose Blogger Bios
The Sweetie in a Glass
Reader Emotional Mullet - to whom I pledged my undying affection because of that rad name - has a mystery plant sitting on her windowsill! She has enlisted the Germinatrix to sleuth out the identity of this cutting she took from a friend's plant...
... and this was my answer:
So, fasten your seatbelt. I think that attractive slice of stem and leaf you have sitting in a glass is a ... sweet potato! Ipomoea batatas 'Ace of Spades' to be precise. I have these ornamental sweet potatoes growing in by veg beds - but my version is Ipomoea batatas 'Blackie', which has more pointed, witchy type leaves. If I am right, check the 'mother plant' at your friend's house. If you dig where the main roots should be, you should find a big, swollen root - the potato! That will make my guess right - but I'm practically 95% sure right now. The stem is correct, the placement of the leaves is correct, the fact that they emerge green and then turn purple is right on - and the fact that the stems root easily is 100% sweet potato! I think we can throw caution to the wind and call this case closed!
This is one of my favorite plants ever. I like to use it as a cascading element in containers, and I also often plant it where it can drip over retaining walls ... it is really sexy at the height of summer and well into the fall. It'll disappear in the late winter for us here in California .... probably a little earlier for you - but it comes back every June, bigger and better. There are also wonderful golden green and bronze varieties. Once you go sweet potato, you don't go back!
People say you can eat the root, just like the edible sweet potato - but I'm not gonna do it. This plant is the one 'cheat' in my vegetable garden, because it is so damned awesome! Good choice of plant, E-mullet, even if you didn't know what it was you were choosing! You have excellent horticultural taste... Let's be friends!
Germi, I emailed you some pics of our back garden-in-planning last week. I think I forgot to sign my name (oops!), but it had 4 photo attachments and was sent 4/9 at 11:11 PM. I hope you received them, and have a chance to comment. Blessings and thanks!
Ohr! - oops - I just looked at my email and saw them ... (I don't know why they escaped my attention before! Sorry!) what you're doing looks great - give me a couple of days to collect my thoughts and I'll give you a once over!
Thank you so much! I am so glad I know what it is now. You are the best!
Sincerely Yours in Growing Things,
Emotional Mullet
Because your tastes are so refined, I was expecting you dislike the sweet potato vine. (Probably has something to with my nagging insecurity that all cool, interesting people automatically dislike whatever I'm into. . . but whatever.) Many people dislike the vine because it can quickly take over a bed, but I love it because it fits into all of the empty spaces and makes my plants look like they floating on lime green and purple clouds. Ahhh.... So what if I occasionally have nightmares that the plant will take me over like the vine in "The Ruins." I still love it.