Bits and Pieces from the Dye Garden

Just to cheer the spirits- a view from our little pond across the grandly named patio or  terrace -really a piece of uneven paving stones to the studio.  Not many dye plants as such although the lilies are  a pleasure however in the immediate foreground is Purple Loostrife Lythrum salicaria just coming into flower, on ne of the plants high in tannin.   The pond is thronged at the moment with birds having sips of water and visiting dogs prefer the pond water to nice clean bowls of water any day.

I had been getting ready for a workshop with a lovely group of ladies known as the Fiesty Felters in Shrewsbury making and painting fine felt with extract dyes.  Here on the line are samples of the ten dyes we used.
Logwood purple, Bodfari green, , Fustic, Annatto, Madder,Pomegrante Lac.Cutch waste,Cochineal and Logwood grey.

The Silk caps were painted with all ten dyes. I didn't have time to take photos of the workshop -but it seemed to go well.  They were nice and very talented bunch who bought  a lot! Particularly my inks .  I sold all I took bar a few bottles and am now completely out of bronze and blue so will need to get going on those.  Both are complicated and take time. 

I said this was a post  was a bits and  pieces! Here are some of the  flowers I have picked to dry.
Top:marigold ( tagetes spp),  Coreopsis spp, Cosmos spp.
And finally a pot of yarrow.  The fibres were a pale yellow. I added a bit of ammonia to brighten the yellow and left it overnight and now it has gone slightly green.  I will rinse it out to day  and see what the colour is then but it looks an intriguing greeny yellow.

Dye Garden in summer (and going down with crash!)

The Dye garden has n ever looked so good and many of the dye plants are now in flower.

Saffloweer Carthamus tinctoria just opening leaning against Hopi Red dye Amaranthus whatsit-must ask Enys for the correct Latin name as it is in none of my dye books, ( she has the one on North American Dye plants) . Behind it is Cosmos and the green is Persicaria tinctoria
Vipers Bugloss -Echium vulgare. It is a huge attractor for bees and so I managed to get one with a bee on it . This is a member of the Boriganacae family many of which give purple or blues with the roots. Someone on Natural Dyes Online mentioned a couple of years ago that they had got blue from the root. This is why we grow it ostensibly but really because Enys adores it and because it attracts bees. ( And I love it too) I haven't tried it yet. Why? Because you have to dig it up and although I always tell visitors to the garden that Enys won't let me dig it up really I couldn't bear too either. It is such a fabulous blue too.
In front the Vipers bugloss, behind Genista tinctora just opening ,with common yarrow Achilleia millifolium in full flower. You can't really see it but the Staghorn Sumach Rhus typhina is in full flower. I have never seen so many on it before and I wonder whether the flowers give any colour. Has anyone tried them?

Behind the bears is dyers chamomile Anthemis tinctoria , which is what the children will use when the BBC come to film a children's science programme in a couple of weeks. It is called Nina and the Neurones.
And the crash
A Chest infection -out of the blue not preceded by anything but an itchy cough which I put down to hay fever . So now I am on massive doses of steroids to keep my lung function from dropping to hospital admission level and antibiotics. The trouble with the steroids is that make you disinclined to sleep and to want to eat and eat and eat because you never feel full. OH woe!
Still the dye garden is lovely and DH loves doing the routine jobs like weeding and watering. And my poor student who was coming on Monday has had to pull out because of an injury to her wrist so in some ways it is all panning out. We are hoping she can rebook when she starts to recover.
I am going to have to slow down! sigh.
I keep forgetting to welcome new followers. So welcome lovely to have you all. Please do drop by and leave a note. I love getting them.

Addition to the Dye Garden Ascelpius Tuberosa Butterfly MilkWeed

Posted by Helen
We have a number of additions to the Dye Garden lately, Asclepius Tuberosa or Butterfly milkweed is the latest and the one of which Enys is most proud as she has nurtured it and overwintered it and here it is in flower. This plant is a member of the Asclepiadaceae or milkweed family although it does not have a milky sap. It is a native of North America found in sandy loamy or calcerous soils of prairies and open woods and is a dye plant producing a range of yellows golds and light bright olives depending on mordant but we are also interested in it as it attracts butterflies which fill our other criteria forthe garden -that it is a garden for the wildlife. It was also used by Native Americans and early settlers for the treatmentof lung complaints-so defintely a good one for me to have- and it was at one time called pleurisy root. It was also used as analgesic, laxative, dermatological and gynacological aid
All this information about it comes from Dyes from American Native Plants A Practical Guide by Lynne Richards and Ronald J Tyrl published by Timber Press Inc ISBN 0-88192-688-X , which Enys brought back from the US a couple of years ago.

Dye Plants in Flower at the moment also include: Viper Bugloss in the picture below, supposed to give purple with roots-yet another one Imust try!


Iris Pseudocorus supposed to give black with the root but not by me


Cosmos Sulphureus flowers give yellows

Weld Reseda Luteola-this year we have had a a lotof weld but it is all self seeded and this large plant was at the edge of a a bed dug at the beginning of the growing season last year -it set a florette last year and this year has just grown and grown.This of course gives a bright lightfast acid yellow which with ammonia is almost florescent

Here is our u shaped foxglove it had fallen over got propped up again and this is the result.

and finally -the principal reason why Enys put mullein Verbascum Thapsus in the garden -it is the only place for the mullein moth, Cucullia verbasci, and here are the happy caterpillars


Jill Goodwin in a Dyers Manual says with copper sulphate this gives a good green but it is one of those plants I have yet to get round to trying.

From Enys
Just been potting on yet more seedlings, and looking at the ones I potted up last week, and thinking by this time next week they'll need to be put in bigger pots!! Trouble is I can't throw any plant away, Peter (husband) manages to be quite heartless and discards any of his plants that he thinks don't maker the grade. My problem is - all my plants are really strong so I can't bear to discard any, must try and stop anthropormorphising them (how's that for a big word) and talking to them, or one day men in white coats will take ma away!!
Enough for now.

Basket and Buttons

Posted by Helen
Today was Clwyd Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers friendship day. It was a lovely day, very warm and friendly with an extremely nice lunch so it was rather sad there were not as many visitors as was hoped for especially so as there were a number of good stalls (including mine). Just looking at the stalls made me realise what a wealth of local talent there is: Debbie Bamford of the Mulberry Dyer and her partner John (Debbie is currently running the Dyeing the Reds workshop on the Online Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers), Andy of Blue faced Leicester.com, who sells lovely yummy fibres many of which are British hooray, Norweft which is a local minimill specialising in alpacas, as well as stalls selling handmade ceramic buttons, baskets and jewellery.

This is what I bought! :) A basket from Chris Jordan to display my buttons and ..... more ceramic buttons by Lynn Blanchard ... which I can't resist! (and also one of John's lovely big niddy noddy's) Although the visitors and members were select they were discerning buyers and bought a lot as well as buying all the plants, which Enys had let me have, within ten minutes of my arrival.

Plants

From Enys
I've obviously got time on my hands, ot maybe I just need a break from potting on seedlings. I potted on what seemed like thousands yesterday, it was actually about 150, Anthemis tinctoria and Persicaria tinctoria. I'm now looking at the Chinese woad, got two more tray to pot on. At least it doesn't matter if it rains, I just adore being in the greenhouse. I could quite cheerfully move in there, nice and quiet, except when my almost 4 year old grandson comes with me, he manages to make himself absolutely filthy, but at least making mud is a quiet occupation! He is actually very helpful, he fills up the pots for meand can usually manage about 20 before boredom sets in!! All the plants that are now large enough are being taken outside to be hardened off, bit of a drag having to take them in and out for a few days before being able to leave them out permenantly. My Madder has at last made an effort and I now have a few to pot on to the next stage, really exciting - that makes me sound so sad!!
Dog and I are now going out to take in plants - it never stops.
Enys

Plants in the spring

Posted by Enys
Finally got some time to write in the blog, having completely forgotten how it's done and having to e-mail Helen to remind me how to. The whole of one side of the green house is full of seedling at various stages of development (I have allowed my husband to grow his tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and various other plants, he's very long suffering!) although I must admit I seem to have at least 3/4 of the space. The persicaria is growing really well, Helen has taken photos of them 60 +, Chinese woad - 3 trays of 20 per tray, lots of Coreopsis, Anthemis tinctoria, Carthamus tinctorus - the first time I tried growing Carthamus it was a failure 3 plants which didn't thrive at all, this year all the seeds germinated and have been potted on. Three weeks of panic - no sign of the madder, three trays of compost greeting me and nothing growing until a few days ago and now they are sprouting up in all the trays, guess they just needed some of the warm sun that we've had this last week, so that's really great. The Echium vulgare are already potted on, and the Indigofera tinctoria -already 4 seedling showing. Gallium verum, Cosmos, Woad are also coming along well. Baptisia Australis has overwintered in the greenhouse so I've got some really strong plants to put out in the main garden, Asclepeas tuberosa also overwinted well along with Anthemis tinctoria, Coreopsis and one Weld which was growing on the floor, it's now in its own pot and looking very happy.
I kept 2 Chinese woad plants in the greenhouse for the winter to make sure that I would get seed and they are now flowering. The Chinese woad overwintered in the garden and promptly got eaten by the rabbits (3 of which are now in my freezer- the rabbits not the woad!) But it is growing again. The rabbits are a real pest, I have no problem with slugs, snails or any other pest except the pheasants in the Autumn when the gamekeeper lets out the young birds, they tend to eat the veg and some plants. We are now going to have to net a vast area of the garden- b....y nuisance. Fortunately my other garden behind the house has not yet been discovered by the rabbits so the Chinese woad was safe there. My wonder dog Cariad (German Shepherd) loves to chase them but being a sheepdog is not into killing just trying to herd them, they don't even have to run very fast to get away from her. Back to plants, there are not enough hours in the day now, , everything is growing so it's the busiest time, potting on, planting, watering. Weeds growing really well, turn your back and the dandelions are back. I've got a real problem with bindweed, not the big white flowered one, but the small pink flowered one, very pretty but not when it chokes my plants. Sadly rabbits do not eat weeds. Some of these plants (not the bindweed) will go into Helen's garden and I've just revamped a small part of mine approx. 40 metres x 4 metres, I'll take some photos and post them for next time. Back to work. Dog walk- plant - dog walk and so on the pattern of my days, + the odd days when I work in other gardens.
Enys