I saw a pic of an ornamental sweet potato vine on the internet with medium to dark purple flowers and would love to grow it. The problem is that the plant was not specifically identified and I believe most sweet potato vines have light colored flowers. Any idea which one it was?

What color were the leaves? Can you share a link to the place you saw the flower?

Most people grow the ornamental sweet potato vines for the foliage rather than for the flowers.
Blackie has dark purple to black cut-leaf leaves.
Margarita has lime green heart-shaped leaves.
Sweet Carolina Red has red/green/bronze leaves.
Blackheart has almost black leaves.
Sweet Carolina Bewitched Purple has a blue color leaf.
Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Purple has medium purple heart-shaped leaves. http://www.purplebearspurplefl...

As greene said, most of the flowers I've seen on the ornamental sweet potato Ipomoea batatas varieties are pink or pale mauve with a dark center sometimes. Also, the flowers are small and not very numerous. It really is a foliage plant and groundcover, not one you'd grow for flowers. If you click on Plant Database in the column to your left, and type in "sweet potato vine" there are pictures of all those that greene mentions above and more.

Are you sure the one you saw was not a Morning Glory? They're closely related. Some of them have gorgeous purple flowers, as well as lots of other colors from white and pink to the bluest blue. If you want an easy, vigorous vine for flowers, I'd grow Morning Glory.

Morning Glory and Sweet Potato are 'cousins'; I agree that if flower color is important you can't go wrong with Morning Glory.

I agree, the ornamental sweet potato vines are usually grown for foliage ... anyone lucky enough to get flowers is double lucky and I'd say if they get dark purple flowers they are triple lucky! Most of the ornamental sweet potato vines have pale blooms. When viewing photos on the internet one must realize that sometimes pictures are photoshopped and the color is sometimes made to be more vibrant than it actually is. I learned that years ago when I purchased a couple of plants because of photos I viewed on-line and the blooms didn't end up being anywhere near as pretty as the photos depicted!

Check out photos of some of the blooms of these ornamental sweet potato vines (Ipomoea batatas) grown by our members:

'Blackie' has pretty flowers: Ornamental Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas 'Blackie')

'Ace of Spades' are pretty but not very vibrant in color: Ornamental Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas 'Ace of Spades')

'Tricolor' which I have growing in my yard has never flowered but I see one photo in the database showing blooms and they are quite pretty: Ornamental Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas 'Tricolor')

'Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Purple': Sweet Potato Vine (Ipomoea batatas 'Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Purple')


AND, if you really want a dark purple bloom you might want to try Morning Glories (Ipomoea purpurea), which are quite easy to grow from seeds; the seeds germinate quickly and the blooms are gorgeous all summer long!

http://garden.org/plants/searc...

A very popular variety is Tall Morning Glory (Ipomoea purpurea 'Grandpa Ott')

If you are looking for something really fast growing, you can't go wrong with Morning Glories! I usually buy a couple of packets of seeds at Walmart or Home Depot every spring and sprinkle them around under one of the palm trees in my yard ... they sprout quickly and twin up the palm trees and are very pretty when in bloom.

Yup, you just can't beat that blue one, if you want blue flowers! I had it growing next to our pool in Utah, and a friend asked me if I'd dyed the flowers, they were such an unreal color.

When it re-seeded itself, the flowers were like Grandpa Ott's - rich purple with a pink throat and I think I actually liked them even better!

If you know how to find that pic again, paste a link to it here. Somebody should recognize it.

Thanks to all of your replies. I'll have to look again for the pic I saw. Maybe my 6 yr. old granddaughter can help me find it - she was sitting on my lap when we ran across it. Wanted to use a sweet potato so she could watch it grow. Happy digging in the dirt - or mud, if you live around here!