Lakeshore Garden Centres Plant Finder

Group/Class:  Spotlight Series

Brand:  Ball

Description:

A low maintenance, heat and drought tolerant variety providing season-long color; deep purple-green foliage with black overtones cascade from containers and window boxes

Ornamental Features

Spotlight™ Black Heart Sweet Potato Vine is primarily valued in the garden for its broadly spreading habit of growth. Its attractive heart-shaped leaves emerge olive green in spring, turning deep purple in colour with hints of black throughout the season.

Landscape Attributes

Spotlight™ Black Heart Sweet Potato Vine is a dense herbaceous annual with a ground-hugging habit of growth. Its relatively coarse texture can be used to stand it apart from other garden plants with finer foliage.

This is a relatively low maintenance plant. The flowers of this plant may actually detract from its ornamental features, so they can be removed as they appear. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Spotlight™ Black Heart Sweet Potato Vine is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• General Garden Use
• Groundcover
• Container Planting
• Hanging Baskets

Planting & Growing

Spotlight™ Black Heart Sweet Potato Vine will grow to be about 10 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 20 inches. When grown in masses or used as a bedding plant, individual plants should be spaced approximately 14 inches apart. Its foliage tends to remain low and dense right to the ground. This fast-growing annual will normally live for one full growing season, needing replacement the following year.

This plant does best in full sun to partial shade. You may want to keep it away from hot, dry locations that receive direct afternoon sun or which get reflected sunlight, such as against the south side of a white wall. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. This plant should not require much in the way of fertilizing once established, although it may appreciate a shot of general-purpose fertilizer from time to time early in the growing season. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America. It can be propagated by cuttings; however, as a cultivated variety, be aware that it may be subject to certain restrictions or prohibitions on propagation.

Spotlight™ Black Heart Sweet Potato Vine is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor containers and hanging baskets. Because of its spreading habit of growth, it is ideally suited for use as a 'spiller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination; plant it near the edges where it can spill gracefully over the pot. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.