The Sculpture House Dye Garden - August 2023
We're well into summer in the dye garden, although the weather has not been as warm and sunny as it was back in June, but the garden is thriving and giving us so much joy at the studio!
Our good friend Caro Weiss popped over to take some photos for us to capture where we're at with our successes and failures from our first year so far...
The five raised beds are now fully planted with woad, madder, calendula, french marigolds and japanese indigo.
Some of the french marigolds are out in full bloom now.
A hopi sunflower standing tall and growing strong. We've had mixed success with these, losing half our crop to slugs or snails unfortunately.
The Ferguslie Dye Gardeners group sowed lots of the coreopsis seeds into small pots which are scattered around the garden by the raised beds and are now all starting to flower beautifully.
Here's the coreopsis flowers on the drying rack inside my studio. They dry down so tiny, so we need to harvest as many as possible to have a supply for making dyes over the autumn and winter.
The calendula flowers are so impressive and are giving us a huge harvest. The dye colour hasn't been as impressive as the french mariglolds sadly despite doubling up on the weight of flower to fabric so we're considering whether to grow these again next year...maybe a few as decorative elements to the garden?
Calendula filling up the drying rack
Thanks to Creative Scotland and the Renfrewshire Community Climate Fund for supporting the Sculpture House Dye Garden.
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