So much is happening in the garden. I can’t keep up. But I have to post about the dye garden. This is the first year I’ve tried to grow plants specifically for dyeing.
I planted this bed on June 14 from seedlings started on May 31. Much too late. Some plants caught up and are blooming, others are struggling. The tall plant and best performer so far is the garland serrated chrysanthemum. Second best is the dyer’s coreopsis. These seeds came from Grand Prismatic Seeds in Utah.
There are a lot of buds on the safflower. It’s an interesting plant, new to me.
I’m looking forward to growing much more of this cosmos. The flowers are stunning and the dyeing power is strong. I won’t be using it to dye until I get more than one flower!
This is my star, the serrated chrysanthemum. I heard about this plant from Suzanne Grosjean. I’ll grow this again.
I love the deep reds and yellows of these flowers. Will grow again. I’m not sure what’s happening with the chamomile. Its foliage is lush, but no flowers.
Seeming to know it belonged here! I was really gratified to see this volunteer St. John’s wort growing next to the dye bed. The flowers are so pretty. I haven’t dyed with it but I saw a video by India Flint showing her use of it in the being (t)here course. The video is called “local colour.”
Other plants in the dye bed that are languishing are black night scabiosa and black hollyhock. I’ll keep at it with these as I’d really like to grow them.
- Hopi black dye sunflower which is growing tall but not blooming yet
- Shades of Gold marigold – huge plants, very happy in the garden, but only a few flowers so far
I’m having trouble keeping up with the garden let alone dyeing, but I did manage to use some of the chrysanthemum and coreopsis recently. This silk broadcloth strip must have been mordanted with iron earlier (the importance of keeping records!), because the prints turned out very dark. These dark silhouettes have their own beauty though.
