Sweet Potato Vine - Ipomoea batatas

[Cloudyz7]

I watch a couple of American You-Tubers and several times I have noticed them planting Sweet Potato Vine in pots and borders (alongside other bedding plants).

I started looking out for it last year in (numerous!) garden centres but couldn't see any. I asked a helpful employee at Wisley who directed me to the vegetable sections (which did have actual sweet potato plants) but the one the You-Tubers are using is definitely a decorative version.

Has anyone ever see it for sale, grown it or can think of any reason why it wouldn't be suitable for growing in the UK? I can see one online stockist (Primrose) but I'm reluctant to buy plants online due to previous disappointing experiences.

Perhaps I have odd tastes but I really like the look of it and thought it would be really popular no brainer for garden centres to stock.

www.provenwinners.com/learn/sweet-potato-vine

Following as I was looking for this recently as I saw it in a beautiful planter designed for a shady area I wanted to replicate.
No luck anywhere. Admittedly I only looked as far as my local garden centres but none could help

There's probably a reason why you can't get hold of it/ it is unavailable and that is that it is not easy to grow and get established. If you bought one (from Primrose) and it failed you wouldn't think kindly of their product/service.
I try and grow ipomea (morning glory....blue flower) every year and ranged from ok-ish to total disaster. And on GQT late last year they were saying that sweet potatoes are ghe devils own work to grow in this country, needing unrealistic heat and humidity.

This is probably why they’re not used as a decorative garden plant in the UK

”Sweet potatoes need average temperatures of at least 24°C with 4 to 6 months frost free and 50cm or more rain in the growing season.
While the plants prefer high light intensities, they also need a short day length (Woolfe, 1992) for tuber formation.”

I bought one in Dobbies at the weekend. There were a few in the reduced section of the vegetable section. 9cm pot for 99p!!

I grow cinnamon vine outside which looks similar, I bought my tubers from ebay. It also grows as a houseplant, it has tubers growing along the stems that you can pot up or store for next year. I think it's also called an air potato plant. It grows very quickly & can get huge 😊