One of the specialty gardens featured in our Teaching Herb Garden, located at Elm Bank in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
The plants in the dye garden were chosen because they produce a rainbow of colors on wool. In general vegetable dyes give soft subtle colors. Usually the material to be dyed needs to be treated with a mordant to allow the dye to be absorbed. Common mordants are alum, chrome, copper and tin. Dying with vegetable matter is more of an art than a science. The actual dye color given by a plant can vary according to that particular growing season, fertility of the soil, part of plant used or time of harvest. Dyer's chamomile (Anthemis tinctoria) is a perennial that has a daisy like yellow flower that blooms in midsummer. It yields a yellow dye when used on wool that has been treated with alum. Dyer's woad (Isatus tinctoria) is a biennial that produces a yellow flower in the spring. Its leaves yield a blue dye. Madder (Rubia tinctoria) has an insignificant flower and a weed like appearance. Its roots yield a red dye to wool treated with alum.
Bibliography:
Buchanan, Rita. A Dyer's Garden: From Plant to Pot, Growing Dyes for Natural Fibers. Colorado: Interweave Press, 1995
________. A Weaver's Garden. Colorado: Interweave Press, 1987.
Cannon, John and Margaret. Dye Plants and Dyeing. Hong Kong: Timber Press, 2003.
Dean, Jenny. Wild Color. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1999.
Kowalchik and Hyltons, editors. Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs. Rodale Press Inc, 1998.
McRae, Bobbi. Colors from Nature: Growing, Collecting and Using Natural Dyes. Vermont: Storey Publishing, 1993.
Ober, Richard, editor. The National Herb Garden Guidebook. Springfield, VA: The Potomac Unit, The Herb Society of America, 1996.
