have you ever seen ivy with purple leaves?

one time, i saw some ivy with light purple leaves. i wonder what they are called? is it a common plant?

You may be thinking of Sweet Potato Vine: Ipomoea batatas
There are several pictures of it in the PlantFiles.
They grow in many different colors and do grow like an ivy.

I have a picture somewhere of a variegated english ivy (Hedera helix) in winter that has rosy-purple foliage. Maybe you saw a regular ivy that was stressed out due to drought or cold?

Boston Ivy 'Purpurea’ has reddish purple foliage.

oh, no, it is not Boston ivy for sure. The one that I saw has mixed green and light purple leaves, and they are not big, either. i saw it at someone's front yard.

So did you check out Sweet Potato Vine like JasperDale suggested? Your description does sound a bit like this one: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/11932/
Also, I found the picture of purple-tinted English Ivy I was thinking of: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3108/2876916035_9d5c64a987.jpg

Ivy is almost a generic term for any vining plant, so you need to be more specific with your question.

a phot would help enormously.

oh, my god, haha, this forum is so helpful!

yes, yes, Sweet Potato Vine is the exact plant that I am asking for! JasperDale's link didn't link directly to the picture, so I didn't bother to look.

don't those leaves look pretty? They look better than the regular green ivy leaves.

Can I just buy the sweet patoto from the market, and grow it directly?

Did it look like this?

If so, you need to buy it at a regular garden center.

Sorry...just read back - it probably looked more like this...

katg, what kind of product is that? does it help plants to grow faster? is yours sweet potato, too?

anyway, plantfreak78 already showed me the correct picture, which i am posting here again.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/11932/

Your plant is ipomoea batatas "Tricolor." It's an ornamental sweet potato vine. Not an ivy (Hedera). There are different varieties- dark purple, chartruese, green/yellow. All are cold-sensitive, unlike Hedera helix, true ivy. They grow very fast. Any multi-purpose fertilizer may be used but is not necessary. You now have all the information you need to close down this thread.

You probably won't be able to buy it until next spring because as dp72 said, it's very cold-sensitive. Our nursery never carries sweet potato vine this late in the season.

Is this particular sweet potato vine the same thing that they sell in supermarkets? If so, I can just buy one directly from the supermarket, and plant it next year?

Oh, no. You'll get a pretty light green vine, but it's coarse, and grows like Topsy. These are ORNAMENTAL sweet potatoes. They selected mutated field s. potatoes and bred them for decorative use. They make a tuber, but you don't want to eat them. Store the tubers inside over the winter to plant again in the spring. What you do is buy one at the nursery when it gets good and warm, and take cuttings from it as it grows and you can have pot after pot of it. Check out the Sweet Caroline Series. Google Sweet Caroline sweet potatoes. They have restrained growth habits and beautiful foliage. The older Blackie, Margarite, etc. are lanky and "take over" a landscape. Your nursery may not get them until the weather is quite warm. There are 8 or 9 (?) varieties in this new series. Bewitched is the real charmer.

youngman, do you want a rooted cutting of that sweet potatoe vine

Just a note.The tubers are poisonous if ingested.

Where did you get that information? My sources at a leading university plant science center say that the tubers are as edible as the field sweet potatoes, but not very tasty. Why would they be poisonous?

I'm pretty sure they're only poisonous if eaten uncooked.

Are you both talking about all sweet potatoes or the ornamental varieties only? ipomoea batatas

Hi Youngman - That planter is an upside-down tomato planter. As you can see though - Sweet potato vine is not a good thing to plant on top as it totally shaded my tomato's that were hanging underneath.

If you would like some vines - I have ton's of them. All varieties.

Kat

After checking my journal,it says the"seeds" are highly toxic if ingested.I guess I associated that with the tubers.Ornamental sweet potatoes are on the toxic to pets lists.
Lynn

jordankittyjo, i don't have a rooted cutting, i thought that it is the same thing as the sweet potato that they sell in the supermarkets. so i was thinking about buying one from there.

katg, your thing is amazing, how can the sweet potato grows so fast? did you use any fertilizer? yea, are you talking about the sweet potato vine? i would like to have some. I know that you can just cut a branch, and put it in the soil, it will just grow like that, pretty easy.

The ornamental sweet potato tubers are no more poisonous than grocery store sweet potatoes (sometimes called "yams," actually an inferior African relative), and hundreds of tons of them are eaten every year. They rarely produce seed anyway- many are sterile even if they did. Not many people graze on seeds with some exceptions such as sunflowers.

Hi Youngman: I can send you some Tubors and roots. Just Email me.

I actually tasted one of the tubors one day out of curiousity! haha. AND I'm still here! It didn't have the sweetness of a Yam, but had the texture of a regular potato...also white. Not that appetizing though.

You're not the first one to ask the question about eating them...and DP72 has the right information.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/609016/

I pulled out all of my "Blackie" last year, even dug out the tubors and it's back with a vengeance. It really is a cool plant though and a great accent. I called that Planter "Cousin It"...it just grows so super fast!