The wonderful purple tree kale/collard

Besides having a major identity crisis this plant is amazing. I have spent a good deal of time trying to figure out if it's kale or collard, the answer seems to be yes???  I ordered purple tree kale, and this is what I got.  
There was a time not that long ago I would have crinkled my nose and said no way to Kale.  Now I'm singing it's praises.  I received two 4" piece. Got the end wet, dipped in root tone, and put it in a pot of soil.  They grow very fast.  
I water them when I think about it. (Was good at keeping them watered in the beginning, until they became established). They produce all year (for me in N. Ca. Zone 9 b). Taste wonderful most of the year.  ( They can get bitter in the heat, but I just feed it to the chickens, they don't seem to mind).  That's it. Seriously it's that simple. I have had very little pest problems.  When it got to big in the veggie garden I cut it down to nothing. Most plants would have died, and honestly I thought it might for a bit, but it's growing new leaves.
It propagates like a dream. When you decide you love it, and want to share with all your friends and family. A tip cutting, or a chunk of stem with a couple of leaf nodes in soil will grow. I used a rooting hormone to help, but I understand it's not necessary.  I started a bunch of cuttings 2 weeks ago. Everyone has top growth. One already has a little root peeking out of the bottom of the pot.  Truly amazing.

Tasty,  very healthy, super easy to grow, produce year round, is a perennial, and is super easy to propagate.  You just can't go wrong.  ( Did I mention the chickens love it? Add reduction in chicken feed)

Those are incredibly cool! I've heard of it but never seen it for sale. (I didn't look that hard) I might need to try it out. I'm zone 6b though. Maybe this would be a great indoor year round greens machine!

Clay if you want to try some you can PM me, I can send you a couple of cuttings.

I read they don't do well with cold temps.  Someone in w. Washington has kept some alive on the South side next to the house.  Some people take cuttings in the fall and bring them in the house to over winter, then plant in the spring.  It gets quite large for a house plant, but it handles ruthless pruning, so I imagine you could keep it any size you like.    

Wow, this sounds like a pretty cool plant! I've never heard of it, but it's definitely going on my list of plants to try adding to our food forest!


Out of curiosity, do you know if there are other varieties of this as well? Like green vs purple, etc?

Tree collards are our primary green, and we grow more of it than we can eat without having to do much at all. We end uo giving away cuttings and using a lot for chop and drop mulch and high N, bacterial feeding compost additions. It has handled 25f and 4ft of snow around it this year, during which it was completely defoliated by desperate quail. It is coming back well. I has also handled 102f last summer just fine. It grows excellently on various soils, and expands its footprint if allowed. I recommend it to anyone who can grow it in their climate.

I knew there were other varieties, but when I looked it up I was surprised how many.

Merritt tree collard
Green tree collard
Dino tree kale/collard
Daubenton kale (variegated perennial kale)
Jolly green tree collard
Big blue tree collard
Michigan tree collard ( for zone 5&6)

I got this last from

https://www.projecttreecollard.org/

It lists all the collards / kale. Gives a description of each.  You can also buy from this site.  I didn't buy from them, I got mine from a private seller on Etsy I think?  I have watched videos on YouTube made by project tree collard and liked what they did plus it's in Berkeley California which isn't far from me.  That being said I have not bought anything from them.  But now I want to.

Jen Fulkerson wrote:I knew there were other varieties, but when I looked it up I was surprised how many.
...

Wow... now I need to take a look and see how many of those are supposed to still be perennial here. I'm technically in 7b, but zooming in on the USDA map shows I'm just a few miles from what they have delineated as 8a...

I'm excited to be discovering some more perennial veggies we should be able to grow!