Potato, Potah-toe!

White potato vine, or Solanum jasminoides if you’re being formal, doesn’t look anything like a potato and grows up rather than underground.  Its leaves are nearly always bright green and it produces white flowers even in the winter.

Delicate white flowers adorn the vine. (photos by Marime Burton)

It disguises old fences nicely and can be trained to grow all over them.  If you prefer it can be trimmed to add just a couple of feet of greenery to the top of a fence that’s not quite tall enough to hide your neighbor’s unkempt backyard.

The vine is soft and pliable and easy to cut which makes pruning a relatively simple job.

It can get bushy if not trimmed occasionally, and may try to get away from you, which could require a harder pruning.  Afterward, agreeable as the White Potato Vine is, it will bounce right back to a more reasonable size and shape.

From the beginning white potato vine grows without much fuss.  Weather doesn’t seem to affect it, most any soil is just fine, thank you, and it requires little water after the first year or two.

Its versatility, relatively low maintenance and nearly year-round green and white presence make White Potato Vine a great garden background.

White potato vine used as a screen atop a fence.

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