While considered an annual, ornamental kale is botanically a biennial. This means that it produces foliage the first year and flowers the second year. Most valued for its foliage, ornamental kale is grown as an annual. Most garden centers offer selections of ornamental kale.

Officially, ornamental cabbage and kale are cool-season biennials. This means they grow their vegetative leaves the first year and then send up flowers the second year, producing seeds before the plant dies.

You can eat flowering kales and cabbages -- also known as ornamental kalle and cabbage -- but you won't want to. You'll want them in your garden beds and borders — or in containers — where they will continue to “bloom” well into winter.

Easy to grow from seed or plants, they pair well with other sturdy, cool-weather species, like mums, pansies, and ornamental grasses.. . . . .364011234076!]0000000000000009783314147679!]