Growing a dye garden on a small plot or in containers is a rewarding way to cultivate natural colours. You can do this for textiles and crafts right at home. In the UK, weather and space constraints limit gardening options.
A container-based dye garden provides a practical and versatile approach. Dye plants are often hardy and low-maintenance, making them suitable for small spaces and variable. A natural dye garden will give you eco-friendly, natural dye pigments for textiles, knitting yarns, soap, and more.
Add one to your backyard. So, just to recap, this small dye garden plot was created in an exposed agricultural pasture field last year in early May for the Groundswell Regenerative Agricultural Show held at Weston in North Hertfordshire. Its purpose was twofold.
A palette from the Earth: be inspired by the Glyndebourne Dye Garden Nestled in the grounds of one of England's most prolific opera houses, the Glyndebourne Dye Garden is a masterclass of colour and craft. Take inspiration from its planting palette, and discover simple dye projects to try at home. There are many different dyes that can be used to colour fabrics.
Natural dyes are the most sustainable, ethical and eco-friendly options and when you grow natural dye plants in your polytunnel or elsewhere in your garden, you can take control, increase self-reliance, and dye some natural fabrics yourself at home. The dedicated dye garden has meant I can grow larger numbers of certain dye plants that reliably give good colours that are both lightfast and washfast. The plants grown in this first year include weld, dahlia, coreopsis, woad, madder, calendula and dyers chamomile.
A couple of years ago I claimed a sunny little patch of the garden that backs onto my studio as my dye bed, but only managed to get round to planting coreopsis. These had come from Waitrose in 2022. Mum (Claudia), who does all the natural dyeing and runs all our natural dyeing workshops had spotted them, hugely reduced at the end of the season and had snapped them up.
Botanical Dye Garden Dyes used in a mainstream fashion are created using suprising levels of toxic chemicals and synthetics, that have a significant impact on biodiversity and human health, causing over 20% of global water pollution. In contrast, natural dyes can be produced from a wide range of flowers, plants, hedges and trees in the UK and when used correctly, can produce vibrant, colour. The best part about natural dye gardening is that you don't need a large plot of land to get started.
In fact, you can create a vibrant and abundant dye garden in a small space, such as a balcony or container garden. In this course, I'll show you how to grow a dye garden no matter how much space you have. Learn how to grow and harvest your own natural dye plants.
Join Claire and Stephy for a guided journey through the cultivation, harvesting, and preservation of dye plants, and learn how to transform your homegrown flowers into stunning natural colour. This course is for beginners or those new to growing natural dyes. How to set up and prepare your dye garden.