Do any of you, while driving around town, notice how many people are growing colorful “cabbage” in there landscape late this year? No? Well thankfully I am just the type of plant nerd to notice these things! This year these cabbage impersonating plants seem to have grown in popularity. This means we need to investigate and learn about this very interesting late season burst of color! This weeks plant of the week is Ornamental Kale.

Ornamental Kale is very similar to Ornamental Cabbage, and therefore shares many traits. We will have this discussion with the understanding that this blog post covers both Ornamental Cabbage and Kale, in terms of its use in the landscape. I will refer to only Kale for simplicity.

Very easy to grow, plant Kale in nutrient rich, moist soil and provide it with a full sun location. When this is done you will, in return, gain a beautiful late season burst of color to your landscape. The color does not come from a flower though, instead Ornamental Kale is a foliage plant. Its’ foliage is splendid and becomes more vibrant as the temperatures drop! Being a cool weather plant, generally you see Kale planted later in the Fall as a sort of late season annual. The color of the foliage can range from white to pink to red and purple, and is truly a stunning plant when planted in groups or flower pots/boxes. A very unique, quick and easy way to bring much needed color and interest to a landscape, when your neighbors yards have gone to sleep.

Ornamental Kale is a great cool season plant, adding a new design aspect and an opportunity to keep your garden beautiful very late into the year. Read more about it here and here!  Also, Here are a few more pictures of this beautiful vegetable, if you need more convincing!