walking stick kale??? never seen this before

[alkapuler]

Last year i planted some Steely Green Kale, the seeds coming from the cross of Cascade Glaze Collards with Lacinato Kale. A few seeds escaped my collecting and the volunteers, 4 of them, appear to be the cross of Steely Green with Walking Stick Giant Kale. Two of them are impressive, big thick stems, bright green shiny large leaves, 3' across and they are 3' tall so far.
As to the polyheaded Kales and polyheaded Cabbages, i have planted about 20-30 seedlings of each, looking for developments of the polyheaded traits which have yet to appear....
Having read some comments about the 'glaze' trait, in the Cascade Glaze Collards, our selection of Green Glaze Collards, there are some plants with purple stems, purplish green glazed, ruffled leaves. The most unusual and beautiful of these are now planted separatedly, well isolated from other brassicas to inbreed them and select for lines.

[spacecase0]

I planted the walking stick kale, it grew up for a while,
it fell over and then started growing up again,
so I had bent walking sticks,
they lived for about 3 or 4 years, I got seeds from it each year
and they finally died... I think the slugs and other bugs put to much stress on them
it had very few leaves so I never tried eating any

[raymondo]

Jun 29, 2010 12:25:30 GMT -5 alkapuler said:

... 4 of them, appear to be the cross of Steely Green with Walking Stick Giant Kale. Two of them are impressive, big thick stems, bright green shiny large leaves, 3' across and they are 3' tall so far ...
... there are some plants with purple stems, purplish green glazed, ruffled leaves. The most unusual and beautiful of these are now planted separately, well isolated from other brassicas to inbreed them and select for lines...

Sounds interesting. I do like to look of the glossy foliage, especially when mixed with some red/purple pigmentation.

[ottawagardener]

I have also tried walking stick kale which didn't survive but did look nice. These crosses sound interesting. I'm very interested in the potential perennial nature of these kale.

[johno]

Very interesting. I am utterly fascinated with brassica diversity.

[castanea]

Where do tree collards fit into this? I am growing them this year. They are fast growers and very productive of leaves. Leaf flavor is not as good as true collards, but good enough.

www.bountifulgardens.org/prodinfo.asp?number=VCO-3250