News From the Dyer's Garden

Everything is blooming in my dyer's garden. I have arrived home from two weeks' cruising from St Petersburg to Moscow, to find the garden a riot of colour.

Yesterday afternoon, I picked 184 French Marigolds, in three colours: yellow, orange and burnt orange, which yielded three separate dye baths. I'm dying (no pun intended) to see what results I obtain when I try my four skein method with each dye pot.

I also picked some  Dyer's Chamomile and some Golden Rod (Solidago) , and made two more dye baths from these gleanings.

Elsewhere in the garden, my Ladies' Bedstraw is in flower and so is the Yellow Cosmos, though these flowers are so pale that I wonder if I'll get a decent colour out of them when I have sufficient to make a dye bath.

The Wild Carrot, Mallow and Yarrow are about to flower, too!

The only problem I have right now is how to get rid of the bindweed that is invading the plot. Grrrr!