How to Propagate Sweet Potato Plants

The Ipomoea batatas, or sweet potato, is a trailing vine. Some cultivars produce the familiar edible roots, and some grow solely as ornamentals. A cousin of morning glories and moonflowers, the decorative vine grows indoors and outdoors and produces a bitter-tasting root, unlike that of sweet potato vegetable cultivars. Edible cultivars include Beauregard, Centennial, Georgia Jet and Jewel. Ornamental cultivars include Blackie, Marguerite and Tricolor. You can propagate all cultivars in two ways, making the plant easily reproduced.

Things You'll Need

• Garden shears
• Drinking glass or jar
• Clean sand or potting soil
• Mulch

Instructions

Cuttings

1. Cut a length of sweet potato vine at least 4 to 5 inches below a leaf with garden shears. Make sure the piece of vine is at least 8 to 12 inches in length so the vine can drape over the rim of a drinking glass or jar.

2. Place the vine in a glass of water with the cut end submerged. Position the leaves to support the vine and hold it in the glass.

3. Check the water level in the glass every two or three days while waiting for the vine to sprout roots. It takes about four to five weeks for the vines to sprout enough roots to plant in your garden or a planter.

Root Propagation

1. Pull up the root tuber of a healthy sweet potato vine. Cut the tuber from the vine with garden shears.

2. Lay the root tuber horizontally in a bed of clean sand or potting soil. Push the tuber about 2 inches under the surface of the soil, and water the tuber until the soil settles over and around the tuber.

3. Water the tuber to keep it from drying out. Use mulch over the soil to hold the moisture in the soil. Remove the mulch from the soil once new sweet potato vines sprout.

4. Remove the tuber and its spouts from the soil after six weeks or when six to 10 leaves appear. Pull the new sweet potato sprouts and roots away from the tuber, and transplant into potting soil or outside in your garden.

References

• Doug Green's Simplegiftsfarm.com: Propagating Sweet Potato Vines
• Alabama Cooperative Extension System; Ornamental Sweet Potato Vines; Tony Glover
• Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service; The Sweet Potato; B. Rosie Lerner; November 2001
• UMass Extension; Specific Crops Production Guidelines for Four Crops---Osteospermum, Angelonia, Calibrachoa & Ornamental Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas); Tina M. Smith; November 2007
• "Success with House Plants"; Anthony Huxley; 1979
• "New Western Garden Book"; David E. Clark; 1985