I just stumbled on this thread while googling around for info on the sweet potato vine. I think I'm gonna try this: " Inside, they were once common houseplants grown on kitchen windowsills, the beautiful vines trained up and around window frames. To help your kids grow their own vine, choose a firm sweet potato. Some are treated with heat to keep them from sprouting on grocery-store shelves, but most grow roots in a matter of days after being placed in water. Using four toothpicks, have your child suspend the vegetable on the rim of a jar or mug filled with water. Make sure the bottom half - the pointed end - is under water. Place in a sunny spot, and change or add water as needed. In a few days, roots will form below the water. And, two to three weeks later, leaves and stems will sprout from the top. Continue to grow the plant in water or, after a month or two, pot the sweet potato in a houseplant potting mix. Keep the soil moist. The stems are weak, so help your child tie them to strings, wire or a stake. Feed once a month with a balanced water-soluble fertilizer such as 20-20-20. As the vine grows, cut it back a few inches to force the plant to grow bushy." Here is a link that might be useful: Additional details here

Christy, How did it hold up?

Both the purple and chartreuse are good ground covers in 8b/9a. Chartreuse is more vigorous. They die back every winter. Usually they come back in spring, but in unusually cold years they may die completely. They do not take over the way they do in S. Florida. I didn't realize it until mine had overwintered, but they bloom in spring. Just a few blooms here and there, which look like small purple morning glories. The purple blooms a lot more for me than the chartreuse does. The blooms aren't worth planting them for, but they are a nice little bonus for a few weeks in late spring. Whether they will choke out what you have in the bed already depends on what's planted there. If your other plants hold their foliage above the sweet potatoes and have reasonably strong root systems, no problem. But they would definitely overrun 12" or smaller plants. It's not so much that the roots would choke them out as they would just grow right over them and shade them out. By the way, although the purple is happier in partial shade, it will tolerate full sun IF given regular water. (Caveat: this may not be true in S. Florida.) Chartreuse will tolerate partial shade, but may be less vigorous than if grown in full sun. So you can plant them together for the color contrast, in either full sun or partial shade - they are lovely paired up.

Thanks for your thoughts. We just had 4-5 days of super heavy rain, and the plant oddly looks perked up! It’s so weird. The yellowing I understand... it was just those weird blotches and the die-back that made me think of a fungus. It’s looking a bit better now, so I may never know what happened. Lol!