Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Dye Garden


My dye flower seeds arrived. I decided that time and weather permitting this year I would start a dye garden. I ordered seeds from Wild Colours and they promptly arrived. I ordered: Madder, Chamomile, Coreopsis, Weld, Indigo and Woad seeds. Germinating seeds is not easy around here, especially now with so many snails and slugs about. Lets see how that goes.

There is a plant that grows abundantly nearby that is in flower at the moment, the yellow flower pictured above, that looks like Woad, except for the leaves. Indeed, it may be a close relative as I remember reading that Woad was of the brassica family, Cabbage and broccoli etc., and so seems to be this yellow flowering plant. Actually this flower looks more like one of the plants used to make Canola. There goes my hope of having wild Woad in abundance just around the corner.

Spring is here again and so are the flowers that come with it and the fields are slowly filled with Poppies,  Jointed Charlock, Yellow Wood Sorrel, Borage and so on.