Hi I kept the tubers of blackie and tri colored sweet potato vine In bags of peat moss this year. Im planting them in pots with potting soil and they should sprout with warmth and water.(and a grow light) Ive kept them over in pots of dirt before in the basement and brought them back. Hopefully they will be planting size by June. I also have a bag of regular sweet potatoes from last years garden that Im going to try to sprout. I love the look of the folage. Good luck with yours! Boop

I decided to try something 2 yrs. ago, which worked. I just got sweet potatoes from the grocery store. Kept them in a small paper bag for awhile until they sprouted. I cut off the sprouts with a nice piece of flesh with the sprout. I then planted the sprouts in soil and kept them watered. I used the sweet potatoes for dinner. They lasted all year, and I did not have to purchase the vines from a nursery. They also looked quite attractive with the other plants in the pot. When I dug them up to toss in the fall, they had little tubers growing on the roots. Does not cost anything to experiment. Think mine were green, I don't think the purple leaved ones are in the grocery store. Darlene

Definately try digging the roots too! It's fun to find the potatoes and see how many you get ! I've never had luck with the cuttings over winter, they seem to just hate the cool windowsills around here and end up dying a slow death. Even the roots seem to like warmer drier storage conditions than other root type things, definately a hot weather plant.

Moni, I do think they need a LOT of heat to sprout. That's why I moved them onto the concrete slab in the hope that the sunlight/heat absorbed by the slab and garage wall would help encourage them to sprout earlier. If you happen to have a cold frame, you can sprout them inside of it, but be sure to open the lid on sunny days! You also can sprout them indoors in potting soil or moist sand, especially if you have a heated seedling mat. If you've ever put a sweet potato in moist sand or water to sprout your own slips for later planting in the garden, you can use the same method to get your saved ornamental sweet potatoes to sprout. Here's one way to do it: About 40 to 45 days before you want to set out your sweet potato (ornamental or edible) slips outside, place a healthy (disease and rot-free) sweet potato on its side in a bed of moist sand. Sand is better than potting soil because it has almost perfect drainage. Cover the sweet potato with about 2" of moist sand. Place in an area where you can maintain the heat at approximately 80 degrees (this is hard to do unless you have a heat mat, but some people have success setting them on top of the water heater, refrigerator or freezer). Make sure you keep the sand moist but not soggy. Slips (sprouts) will eventually appear--about the time you think they won't and have given up! Once this occurs, add another inch or two of sand so the slips have room to produce a stronger root system. Once your slips have reached a height of about 6" above the soil surface, you can pull them up out of the sand with a GENTLE twisting motion. It is ideal to plant the slips as soon as you pull them up. But, if they haven't been exposed to direct sunlight, you need to harden them off gradually or they'll sunburn and die. If disaster occurs, and your slips pull loose but don't have much (or any) of a root system, just stick them into water and root them the way you'd root cuttings. For ornamental sweet potatoes, I like to put the individual slips into 16 oz. plastic cups of potting soil and let them grow on there for a couple of weeks before I move them outside. Remember to harden them off by gradually exposing them to sunlight, if they have been inside under lights and have received little direct sunlight. ALTERNATE WAY TO CARRY OVER ORNAMENTAL SWEET POTATOES: You can just take cuttings shortly before your first freeze occurs and root those cuttings in water. Once roots have appeared and are an inch or two long, plant the cuttings in 6" pots of potting soil. Place in a sunny window and keep well-watered, but not wet. If your house gets pretty dry inside in the winter months, mist them occasionally. This gives you new and "fresh" plants for spring. Sometimes, I take cuttings to root AND save the tubers as well....figuring one way or another, I'll have plants in the spring and won't have to buy new ones. Most years, one method or the other works. Good luck, y'all. I just love ornamental sweet potatoes as they handle our extreme heat so well and they are so very pretty. Dawn