Dye Garden Resources
If you missed any of our dye classes, here are some of our favorite resources to get you started. Try things, experiment, have fun!
Where we find seeds…
We save seeds! This is our fourth year growing dye plants, and we typically have cosmos, indigo, coreopsis, and marigold seeds to share.
Simple Resist Dye Techniques
Photos 1 & 2 : furniture biscuits tightly clamped to fabric folded into a square make the pattern.
Photos 3 & 4: the fabric is folded into a triangle and biscuits clamped to the fabric make the pattern.
Photos 5 & 6: a broken popsicle stick creates the pattern
all fabric dyed with cosmos flowers
Grand Prismatic - Almost all of our dye plant seeds were ordered from this company.
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange - E.A.T. South’s source for southern vegetables, but they also sell coreopsis, rudbeckia, black bachelor’s buttons, cosmos, marigolds and sunflowers
True Love Seeds sells amaranth, Doc’s North Florida hibiscus, and indigo seeds.
How-To Books
• Make Ink: A Forager’s Guide to Natural Ink Making by Jason Logan, simple instructions for making ink out of many found materials.
• Wild Inks and Paints: A Seasonal Palette by Joumana Medlej
She also has a lovely Instagram presence.
Botanical Inks, Babs Behan, book and website with classes and lots of botanical dye and ink info
A Weaver’s Garden: Growing Plants for Natural Dyes and Fibers, Rita Buchanan, includes information about dye plants along with plants to grow or forage (hello, kudzu!) to make your own fiber
Online resources
NUMEROUS You Tube videos - search and re-search!
On Facebook
Indigo Pigment Extraction Methods, Exclusively for Indigo Extraction only. Great community and a deep dive into processes:
On Instagram
High Hog Farm, outside of Atlanta, source for natural dye, raises heritage Gulf Coast Sheep and Angora rabbits, spinning classes
History and Theory
Cotton fabric dyed with Japanese indigo grown in Montgomery, Alabama
Seven Things You Need to Know about Japanese Indigo, Japan Objects, history/processing of indigo in Japan
What the Color “Haint Blue” Means to the Descendents of Enslaved Africans, Atlas Obscura, a history of indigo in the Americas
Blue: A History of the Color as Deep as the Sea and as Wide as the Sky, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Illustrated by Daniel Minter, children’s book about indigo
Braiding Sweet Grass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants and The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Robin Wall Kimmerer, essays about nature, wild crafting, learning from plants and nature
George Washington Carver: Arts and Crafts, National Parks Service, pictures of Carver’s paints, textile art, and basketry
Source for mordants, dyes, fabric, and modifiers
Botanical Colors, online source for dye materials
Dye plants we have grown at E.A.T. South with some notes about growing them…
Amaranth (flower - red, gold) - reseeds easily. Plants up to 6 ft tall. Like full sun. loves heat. Seeds and leaves edible. Easy to grow. Flea beetles love the leaves, too.
Black knight scabiosa (flower - blueish to purple)- grew marginally well. Started indoors from seed in February. Transplanted into the garden at the end of March.
Cosmos - The #1 workhorse of the dye garden. Easily reseeds. Easy to save the seed.
Coreopsis (flower- yellow/orange depending on flower variety: lanceleaf, cinnamon, Mardi Gras) - easy to grow, easily reseeds, dies out around the end of June
Dyer’s Cammomile – (flower-yellow) perennial plant, likes cooler weather, give it some shade, does well in March, April, May
Bachelors Buttons (flower-greens/grays)
Japanese Indigo - (leaves-blue) Easy to grow, need to water a lot & keep harvesting - this is the one plant where the primary dye part is leaves not flowers - grown at E.A.T. South both from seed and rooted cuttings.
Hibiscus/Roselle (calyx-pink/red) Long-season tropical plant, start indoors in early february, transplant out in April, will bloom in September. Doc’s North Florida is better suited to our climate, but the Thai and other tropical varieties do grow here, too.
Marigolds (flower-yellow/orange) also a garden workhorse. Easy to grow, forgiving, reseeds, seeds easy to save. We have grown African marigolds, French marigolds, and Day of the Dead marigolds (yellow)
Weld (leaves/flower-yellow)- did not like climate or not enough water. Would like to try again, and maybe plant in a shadier or cooler spot.
dye cosmos (orange) and lance leaf coreopsis (yellow)
Dye gardens are also great for pollinators.
Madder (root-red)- held on into the summer but didn’t like the heat. Plant in partial shade? More water? Some plants (maybe 3 or 4) are doing better. Needs trellis. Takes 3 years to grow harvestable roots.
Safflower - (flower-red/yellow/pink) Cool weather loving plant. Hard to grow in our climate. Transplant early in year (February?), may get blooms before it gets too hot.
Turmeric - (orange) - grow from root cuttings, likes our hot weather, beautiful flower and leaves, root is source of color
Foraging dye plants
Goldenrod, flower
Black walnut, nut husk
Rudbeckia, flower/leaf
Privet (poison), berry
Poke (poison), berry
Prickly Pear Cactus, fruit
Goldenrod
Goldenrod is native to Alabama and blooms late in the summer. Make sure to leave many plants for the bees and other animals.
Kitchen foraging
Onion skins (purples, golds)
Beets
Purple cabbage
Avocado pits and skins (pink!)
Coffee
Tea
Turmeric
Hibiscus/Red Zinger Tea (buy dried hibiscus by the pound at Capital Market and Latino Supermarket)