#dyegarden

It was worth the wait - the most wonderful thing is this Ruivinha root, or Madder aka Rubia Tinctorum 🌱 Valeu a pena esperar - coisa mais maravilhosa é essa raiz da Ruivinha, or Madder aka Rubia Tinctorum ❣️

Growing indigo: This is the second summer I have grown the variety Persicaria tinctoria. I have a small plot, about 5′x3′ in my right of way by the street. The plants are now blooming beautiful hot pink flowers and collecting these leaves mid to late september will be my third harvest of leaves. With what I’ve grown I have been able to dye 3 shirts, a lb. or so of yarn, and attempt a pigment extraction process twice. The first time didn’t work, so I’ll harvest the last leaves after they are done going to seed and attempt the process again.The last three images show dyeing a shirt with the raw leaves, a very simple process, and what the wool yarn and silk looked like after a fresh indigo dye. Deep blues that indigo is known for come sfrom a fermented indigo while dyeing with fresh leaves gives different teal and greener hues like these. Next year, I aim to have more silk items on hand to dye, and get better at extracting the pigment from the leaves so I will have a shelf stable pigment for later on. 

{{ #takinginventory 🌼 #whatthedeerdidnteat 🦌🍽 #coreopsis #tickseed 🌼 Gold & bronze tickseed from my #dyegarden 🌱🌱🌱 }} It’s not all #somepinkflowers 🌸 over here. 💕 👋🏽☺️🌸🌼💕 One reason I do not travel L O N G E R is this :: #mygarden 🌸🌼💕 & the more frequent droughts & the hungry wildlife 🦌🦝🐿 … So far the grasshoppers have been my archenemy again this spring but So Far 🦗🦗🦗have left my #herbaceous #perrenial coreopsis alone … #fingerscrossed 🤞🏽 (at Saint Augustine, Florida) https://www.instagram.com/p/CdvOxvoulhi/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Persicaria tinctoria aka Indigo plant seeds 🌱🌀💙

If my plants keep growing, I might be able to harvest another batch of leaves and dye another item. I am going to keep reading about other ways to use the leaves and methods of creating not just dyes, but dry pigments and other ways of capturing color for creative applications. 

To understand the beautiful dye garden I work in you need to have the soul of a Medieval monk. You need patience, you need to listen and look for clues. None of these plants give up their secrets easily...probably the first dyes were discovered when harvesting herbs, weeds and vegetables for food , paints and medicines as infusions would have been the simplest way to create tinctures and cordials. We have purple cabbage in this garden to make dye from and the roots of the buttercup create a glorious purple dye... the Queen Anne’s lace a brilliant yellow. The commonest of “ weeds” produce some of the most brilliant hues and I am grateful to learn these mysteries, these old ways. To me , a weed is simply a plant that is misunderstood by a human and I’m grateful to work in a garden that is full of them❤️ the plants in this garden are some of the oldest in the world and some of the most useful. #dyeplants #dyegarden @westernreserveherbsociety garden #bethschreibmangehring #weeds #cottagecore (at Cleveland Botanical Garden) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQgpx7ggyPE/?utm_medium=tumblr

I am fortunate to be the Co-chair of the Dye Section of our beautiful herb garden down @westernreserveherbsociety garden at the @clegarden . Working in this garden is a joy and an adventure given that it’s actually the least easily understood of the sections that make up our garden. The most common question? “ Why are you growing a garden full of weeds? “ Dye plants are some of the oldest of the useful plants and like many of the medicinal plants, they ARE “ weeds!” As a result, the dye garden flows in a way that’s more natural and less conformed to the rigidity of a formal garden pattern. It’s almost impossible to tame and that’s because the beauty of these plants isn’t necessarily in the flowers, but instead in the mystery of the roots, leaves and stems, and what happens when you use a bit of alchemy and mordant to pull out the pigments and fix the colors. The yellow flowers you see here are from the Woad plant. The Woad plant doesn’t create a yellow dye...it creates a blue pigment from the leaves, and in fact it yields the face paint that the ancient Celts used to paint their faces blue before battle as well as a beautifully subtle blue dye for yarns and textiles. When it comes to natural plant dyes, the thinking these days is #farmtocloset and all of these easily misunderstood plants are finally getting honored as they should! #plantdye #plantdyes #dyegarden #dyegardening #alchemy #science #woad #woadblue #bethschreibmangehring #asanctuarycalledhome #potagersforasmallplanet (at The Herban Inn) https://www.instagram.com/p/COvMKEiJo_2/?igshid=l2uhran7br2u

This is a Buddleja, covered in snow! See my books on Amazon here: bit.ly/elefteria and keep reading about the plant! I took this photo in Tourkovounia hill. Buddleja is a dye plant - its leaf and flower will dye fibers yellow. Its resistance to light and oxidation is medium. You can also obtain green shades, with proper modification. Our school offers an online course on natural dyeing, at 50E only. DM us for details. Photo taken by me, all rights reserved. #butterflybush #lilac #wilddyes #dyegarden #urbangardening #buddleja #buddleia #foraging #rewilding #primitiveskills #sustainablefashion #dyersofinstagram #naturaldye #plantdye  #naturaldyes #naturaldyersofinstagram #naturaldyeing #ecodye #ecodyeing  #distancelearning #herbnerd #plantallies #textileartist #ecoartist #veganfashion #ecofashionista #slowfashionmovement #majestic_macros (at Áno Kypséli) https://www.instagram.com/p/CLd8Tl6F0uB/?igshid=1290ydkg8vgui