Ipomoea tubers

Last year I bought some new ipomoeas, intending to use them in hanging baskets. I bought 3 called Blacky and 3 lime green ones and one variegated green, white and pink one. They were very slow to get going and I only used 2 of the lime ones.
I decided to try to keep them overwinter and despide being munched by something, I have lime green ones, 1 blacky, and one variegated surviving.
I know it seems very late for sorting out hanging baskets but I did start yesterday, and was unpotting these ipomoeas and found they have developed red/brown tubers like small potatoes from the size of a walnut to about 2 1/2". I ve grown Morning Glories for a couple of years now which have grown much larger than these but never produced tubers.
I hope they will now grow more quickly as they are very attractive foliage plants.

 

Hi liz, the Blackie tubers are of the Ipomoea Batatas variety which are the sweet potato, the other tuberous ones are probably cultivars of this too.
I have been after Blackie for a while as seeds but apparently, like potatoes, tubers seem to be the way to propagate them.
Beautiful foliage plants but not sure if the ornamental ones are edible.

 

I haven't seen anything but plants, and I had no flowers from any of the 3 varieties. Perhaps they need hotter weather to flower?
I don't want to eat them, they took long enough to grow
:eek:

 

Apparently the batatas cultivars are grown for their ornamental foliage rather than flowers.
See here for more info.
http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/Plant.asp?code=A587

And for interesting info about sweet potatoes see here.

http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Ipomoea/index.html