Hi, What are your favorite kale varieties by how they taste as a cooked green? If I could find a super hardy variety that tastes as good as collards I'd gladly try it for next year. The RR kale is a good strong vigorous plant and is doing very well, growing faster and stronger (and with less watering) than my brocolli or Brussels sprouts. Around here in winter 10 F. is considered warm, so maybe the RR kale won't overwinter as we don't always get deep snow. Over the years I've had 1 or 2 smaller collard plants overwinter, but normally not. Last winter, however, I had a small brussel sprouts make it thru until spring buried in the snow. However, within a week or so it completely vanished without a trace roots and all!

Yep, cauliflower is a biennial. That is only important to you when you want to save seeds. Here is a link that might be useful: Saving seeds from cauliflower

There are lots of reference books out there that will give you much more detailed plant information so you're better informed about what you plant in your flowerbeds. By far the most highly-recommended book is Tracy DiSabato-Aust's The Well-Tended Perennial Garden but I've found several others that provide reliable information. Two that I keep close to hand are Perennials for Every Purpose by Larry Hodgson and another published by Ortho called The Complete Perennials Book. Both have allowed me to better plan my flowerbeds & maximize the expected results from year to year. It's been my experience that some cultivars hit the garden centers long before their garden performance is assured, among them coreopsis and rudbeckia. One coreopsis that seems hardy & grows to larger proportions in my beds each year is C. 'Zagreb.' Gaillardia/blanket flower has been borderline hardy in my Zone 6 garden even when grown from seed via winter sowing so I'm glad when it reappears in Spring but not entirely surprised when it doesn't. The same cannot be said of foxglove--it doesn't do well here so I don't bother/waste time trying to grow it. I'm not surprised the hollyhocks I grew from seed didn't return this year but was a bit disappointed when established butterfly bushes and false indigo plants failed to come up this spring. Some perennial plants are just naturally short-lived so it's best to research them and plan your garden beds with that in mind. Setting realistic goals and expectations is something else to be factored into the equation. My initial goal was attracting bees, butterflies & birds which I've succeeded in doing altho' not without a number of disappointments along the way. FWIW, there's a saying that goes something like 'you aren't a real gardener until you've killed every plant at least three times.'

I believe all plants adjust growth patterns based on length of day and temps. I do not agree that plants remain on their N or S Hemisphere growth patterns. All my yucca, agaves, and aloes have offset. The reason behind my thinking that yucca is biennial is due to the fact that I have 2 clumps of Hesperaloe parviflora. One sited in my back yard and one sited in my front yard. Both clumps get full sun. The clump in my backyard bloomed the first year. The clump in my front yard bloomed the second year. The clump in the back bloomed again last year whereas the clump in the front did not. Am I doing something to set these yuccas back yearly? When they bloom the inflorescence appears around early April and I cut it off when it is completely dried around December the same year. The color remains in the inflorescence and blooms from May til November. Both clumps of yucca offset yearly and look great. What months do others Aloe Jucundas bloom? Also, how long before an offset of Aloe Saponaria will bloom? The offset got huge in one season and is almost as big as the parent plant. I am hoping for blooms on both of them so I can symetrically place them in front of my home this summer. Most people that I know and run into never even knew that Aloe blooms, so it is a great conversation piece. TIA David