Apios americana

or potato bean

Many years ago I went to a talk given by Bob Brown (founder of Cotswold Garden Flowers) at one of our local Hardy Plant Society meetings. I remembered to grab my garden notebook as I left home, because what Bob recommends will always be worth growing and he introduced me to my subject today.

This herbaceous climber is not commonly grown but is now more easily sourced than it used to be. Mine took a while to establish and indeed I thought I had lost it after its first winter, but no. Hardy for us, it happily shares a wooden structure in our vegetable garden with a thornless blackberry, and believe me, it looks as if it would grow a lot higher than the 2.5m we are told it will attain. It is often when I go to pick the first blackberries that I remember the potato bean is there, because that is when I notice the unusual but stylish, dusky, pinky-purple flowers. These are fragrant and very striking.

Native to the eastern half of North America, its edible tubers were an important source of food for indigenous Americans, being high in protein and very tasty – not unlike a nutty potato I am told. For the first few years I was reluctant to dig ours up for fear of disturbing and losing this new find of mine, but there is no excuse now as their patch must be full of tubers. For this reason it’s probably best to harvest them in late autumn or winter.

Belonging to the family Fabaceae or Leguminosae, (legumes, peas and beans), this large and agriculturally important group includes soybeans, garden peas, peanuts and lentils. They are excellent nitrogen-fixing plants: this is a natural way to enrich and improve your soil without the use of chemical fertilisers.

Grow it on a trellis, along a fence, through a shrub or tree, or up a wigwam like sweet peas; I promise it won’t disappoint. It also does well in a container.

NB Louise has published a beautifully produced book of her plant profiles – A Plant for Each Week of the Year. It costs £9.99 and is for sale in our online shop here.

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