Salt Spring Island, Esme’s Dye Garden

Back ground, Ficus carica (fig tree), Mid ground, Anchusa officinalis (alkanet), Lupinus polyphyllus (lupine), Foeniculum vulgare ‘purpureum’ (bronze fennel), and Althaea rosea nigra (black holly hock)

Salt Spring Island, Esme’s Dye Garden

Back ground, Acer palmatum (Japanese Maple), Rheum palmatum tanguticum (Chinese rhubarb), Lupinus polyphyllus (Lupine), Foreground, Helenium hoopesii (Owl’s claw).

Indigofera tinctoria

Indigo is a small insignificant-looking bush, yet its importance in the past surpasses all other natural dyes. Believed to have originated in India, it has been cultivated throughout the tropics. It can also grow successfully in cooler regions that have a long and hot growing season. Its popularity is due to the high concentration of blue pigment extracted from the leaves as well as for being easy to cultivate in both wet and dry climates. An added benefit is its ability to enrich the soil with nitrogen; for this reason, farmers have also used it as a natural fertilizer.

Polygonum tinctorium

Dyer’s Knotweed is an annual plant reaching 90 cm in height. Although being native to China it is now known as Japanese indigo. It is only commercially grown by a handful of Japanese dyers today.

Gardenia jasminoides

Gardenia berries and seed husks were mentioned in ancient Chinese texts dating to 1045 BCE for producing vibrant yellow dyes. Today they are used commercially in herbal medicines and as a yellow food colouring.

Strobilanthes cusia

Ktze has been an important indigo dye plant in Southwest China, Taiwan, the southern Japanese Ryukyu Islands, northern Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Northeast India. It grows to the height of fifty centimeters and has small flouted purple flowers. The leaves contain a high concentration of the indigo pigment.

Thea sinensia

Tea is synonymous with China which is still the largest producer in the world. Tea estates are also found in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Africa and Australia. Tea has not been commonly used as a dye, likely due to it being costlier in the past than comparable dye plants. Black tea produces a wide range of rich dye colours such as copper, mocha, chocolate brown and black.

Bixa orellana

Annatto is a tree, native to South America. It has been commercially cultivated in India since 1787. For thousands of years the waxy red seeds found within the hairy fruit have been used as a red and orange body paint and textile dye. Today the seeds continue to be an important non-toxic food and cosmetic colouring.

Punica granatum

Pomegranate is a fruiting tree originating in Central Asia which now grows throughout the world in tropical and subtropical regions. It’s popular with natural dyers in India because of the colours it produces, both vibrant and long lasting: brown, yellow, gold, olive green, grey and black.

Rubia tinctoria

Madder is a plant native to western and central Asia. In the past Indian and most likely Persian dyers used the root to create the famous ‘Turkey Red’ dye that printed a vibrant and colourfast red on cotton ‘chintz’ fabrics. This dye process is complicated and time consuming and the technique was kept a secret from European dyers for hundreds and possibly thousands of years. Greek dyers were the first Europeans to learn how to create the ‘Turkey Red’ dye process, and they passed the technique on to the Russians and French. It was a Frenchman, Louis Borelle, who set up the first ‘Turkey Red’ dye factory in Manchester, England in 1776.

Terminalia chebula

Myrobalan is a deciduous tree found in India, Myanmar, Thailand, Indo-China, Southern China, South Africa and Australia. The fruit is a common traditional Indian medicine, as well as an important natural dye, and is widely used in the tanning industry. Dye colours include tan, yellow, khaki, grey and black. It is one of the ingredients needed to produce ‘Turkey Red’.

Aleurites moluccana

Candlenut is a large tree found in South East Asia and the Pacific Islands. The nut, rich in oil, is used to prepare cotton threads before they are placed into a dye bath.

Marsdenia tinctoria

Sumatran Indigo is found from Sikkim Himalaya across to Southeast Asia. The leaves of this bushy vine contain the indigo blue pigment.

Woodfordia floribunda

Fire Flame Bush is indigenous to Sri Lanka and now grows throughout India, Indonesia, Madagascar and Myanmar. The dried leaves and flowers contain a high concentration of tannin and produce a range of colours from tan, mocha, dark brown, plum, grey and black.

Caesalpinia sappan

Sappan is a small prickly tree native to Malaysia. Its orange-coloured heartwood has been an important red, plum and black dye source. Disappointingly the colours are fugitive and rapidly fade in sunlight.

Lonchocarpus cyanescens

West African Indigo, a vigorous climbing bush, was only introduced to Malaysia in 1882, but it grew well, reaching heights of 6 metres or more and required little maintenance. It’s possible this bush could have become Malaysia’s number one indigo producer. In 1890 synthetic indigo was invented and as the saying goes, the rest is history.

Cocos nucifera

Coconut is a palm found throughout the tropics. It reaches the height of 30 metres, the fruit is surrounded by a thick fibrous husk. This husk produces wonderful shades of tan, mocha, peach, terra cotta and dark brown. Coconut milk and oil is used as a colour modifier and dye fixative.

Morinda citrifolia

Morinda is a small tree reaching 7 metres in height, growing from Australia and throughout tropical Asia. Dyers in Southeast Asia and India have used the root bark of this tree and other closely related Morinda trees for hundreds and possibly thousands of years, producing a vibrant red dye for cotton yarns and textiles.

Artocarpus heterophyllus

Jackfruit trees reach 21 metres, with large spiky fruits and are found throughout the tropics. In the past the wood was used to dye monks robes a dark saffron yellow.

Kerria lac

Lac is an insect that nests on certain host trees producing a thick resinous fluid that turns into a hard encrustation. One of the earliest accounts of this insect is found in the Indian Atharva Veda dating back to 1500 – 1200 BCE. The Lac insect found in Thailand is called Kerria chinensis from which a vibrant selection of dye colours including red, pink, burgundy, lilac, orange, and brown can be obtained.

Diospyros mollis

Maklua is a mid-sized tree reaching 8 metres in height. The unripe fruits are used in Thailand to dye silk and cotton a rich brown and black as well as silver, chartreuse, sage green, mocha and grey.

Amaranthus cruentus

Amaranth Hopi Red Dye is a grain producing plant native to Central America and domesticated by farmers over 6000 years ago. The grain was used in Inca rituals dating back to 4000 BCE. The Hopi native tribe, from the American Southwest, use the pink flower bracts as a food colouring to make their traditional ‘piki’ flat breads pink. The whole plant can be used to make a deep pink dye bath that dyes wool yarns not pink but, intriguingly, egg yolk yellow and khaki green. However more experimentation is needed to discover how to dye yarns pink.

Isatis tinctoria

Woad is a plant related to the cabbage family and produces a blue and purple dye similar to indigo. It is native to southern Russia, Afghanistan, Tibet and China. It’s not known when woad was first cultivated in Europe but by the 13th century woad was an important source of commerce, Germany and France being the two largest producers. However this lucrative dye industry built around woad came under mounting competitive pressure in the 1500’s when dried Indigo cakes were imported from India and European dyers discovered Indian indigo had 20 to 30 times more pigment than a comparable amount of woad. In 1609 the French government tried desperately to protect their woad producers by issuing a death penalty for any dyer using indigo instead of woad, but to no avail. In the end, Indian indigo won the trade war and indigo went on to become one of India’s most important export products for the next two hundred and thirty years.