Plant Of The Month: Dec. 2000, Brassica

How To Grow
Ornamental cabbage and kale thrive in full sun, rich, well-drained soil and cool temperatures. They benefit from midday to afternoon shade in areas where they might be exposed to warm temperatures. Grow them for fall to winter color, since their foliage colors up best after temperatures turn cool (below 50° F) and the days short. Sow seeds in mid- to late summer either indoors in pots or in an outdoor seedbed. Do not cover seeds with soil. Germination takes a week at 65° to 70° F. Keep plants evenly moist. Try to keep them cool - ideally 65° F, slightly cooler at night - then transplant to the garden in late summer or early fall.

Feed plants with a balanced fertilizer about three weeks after transplanting, and mulch to keep the soil cool. Use the earlier schedule - midsummer sowing and late summer transplanting - in northern zones. In the South where these plants can "bloom" all winter, sow in late summer for early-fall transplanting. Use ornamental cabbages and kales in beds with other cold-tolerant annuals or plant them as edgings. They also make excellent container plants.

B. oleracea p.
b. ol-er-AY-cee-ah. Flowering cabbage, flowering kale.
Loose, 10- to 14-inch tall rosettes of colorful, edible leaves in combinations of green and red, green and creamy white, blue-green and mauve-pink, or green and magenta or pink. Flowering cabbages (B. oleracea Acephala Group) have wavy-edged leaves, while kales (B. oleracea Capitata Group) tend to have leaves with fringed or ruffled edges. Biennial grown as an annual.

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Ornamental Cabbage and Kale Cultivars
From late summer into fall, ornamental cabbages and kales are readily available and well-stocked in garden centers and nurseries. They're easy and inexpensive to grow, though, and if you want enough plants for bedding displays, you'll want to start your own from seeds. Here are some readily available cultivars to look for:

CABBAGE
Osaka Mix - a mix of ornamental cabbages with pink, rose-red or white leaves at the center and blue-green outer leaves. Plants reach 12 inches tall and wide.

Tokyo Mix - ornamental cabbages with rounded, blue green outer leaves clustered around a showy center of pink, mauve-red or white inner leaves. Plants are 10 to 12 inches tall.

KALE
Edible kales - listed in the vegetable section of seed catalogs; often are used as attractive cultivars developed specifically for ornamental use. Consider planting some of the larger cultivars in beds and borders to add color, texture and substance from summer until winter. The leaves of all kales also make attractive garnishes.

'Red Bor' - an extremely handsome, edible-type kale with extremely curled red-purple leaves and brighter pink veins. Plants reach 3+ feet.

'Red Chidori' - ornamental kale producing cabbage-shaped, 12- to 13-inch-tall mounds that have a dense center of rich rose-pink, ruffled leaves surrounded by looser, ruffled leaves that fade to purple-green or bronzy toward the outer portion of the rosette.

'Red Feather' - ornamental cultivar with featherlike leaves that are reddish pink toward the center shading to bronze-purple at the edges. Plants reach about 2 feet.

'White Peacock' - ornamental cultivar with frilly, frondlike leaves that fade from white to blue-green.

'Nagoya Garnish Red' - bears frilly edged leaves that are magenta-red and blue-green. Outer leaves have a blue-green edge, but toward the center of the head the leaves are solid red/pink. Color is best in cool weather. Plants are 10 to 12 inches tall.

'Red Russian' - edible kale that bears 3-foot-long, oakleaf-shaped leaves that turn from reddish green to rich red after frost. Good flavor and tender texture, especially after frost.

'Toscano' - an edible kale with flat, somewhat lance-shaped leaves that have a blistered texture and dark blue-green color. Plants are 3+ feet tall at maturity. Tolerates both hot and cold weather.

'Winterbor' - an edible-type kale producing mounds of extremely curly blue-green to green leaves. Plants are 2 to 3 feet tall.

For the Plant Of The Month index click here.

Ellis is also the author of "Taylor's Guide to Growing North America's Favorite Plants: A detailed, how-to-grow guide to selecting, planting, and caring for the best classic plants." (Houghton Mifflin, 1998, softcover). Country Living magazine called this comprehensive reference "The 'must-have' gardening book of the year."