Download Garden of Colour Plants

Garden design and creation:
Research department and “Green Spaces” department,
in conjunction with asbl “Histoires de Plantes”
Garden of
Colour Plants
Coordination:
Ms Valentine DONCK
Information:
www.ville.namur.be - www.nature-namur.be
0800/935.62
An initiative of the Municipal Council for the Environment and Green Spaces
Publisher with legal liability: City of Namur, 5000 Namur
March 2013
Layout: Reprographics Department
Vedrin, Rue Frères Biéva 203 - on the site of the “Green Spaces” department
An initiative of the Municipal Council for the Environment and Green Spaces
Garden of Colour Plants
Rue Frères Biéva 203, 5020 Vedrin
The
Jean Chalon Garden
Parc Louise-Marie, Boulevard Frère Orban 5000 Namur
The Garden of the Two Towers
Citadel of Namur - Route Merveilleuse - Entrance near the “Tour Joyeuse”
The Garden of Fragrances
Rue de l’Ermitage 1, 5000 Namur
The Berry Garden
Chaussée de Dinant 1092, 5100 Wépion - In the place called “Le Grand Pré”
Why a garden of colour
plants?
Indigenous herbaceous plants
Our embankments, woods and meadows harbour numerous interesting plants used
for dyeing. Here are just a few examples that you can gather yourselves when out for
a walk.
Broad-leaf dock dye with iron mordanting is one of the traditional recipes for obtaining
black in Ireland and Scotland. Bedstraw, like madder, belongs to the Rubiaceae family
(from the Latin rubia, red) and produces red dyes, as do the petals of poppies and
St-John’s-Wort. Nettles are forgiven for stinging by yielding lovely yellows, as do
meadow clover, dyer’s camomile, solidago and mugwort. The finest, most stable yellow
dyes come from dyer’s savory and dyer’s weed. The blue from cornflowers is used in
illuminated manuscripts.
Plant dyeing is an art that has evolved over thousands of years of practice, experience
and learning. An art based on knowledge of these plants that produce substances
which can be used to dye fibres. This garden takes you into the magical world of
natural colour to propose a new approach to Mother Nature’s riches, a different view
of these small, insignificant plants, some of which have changed history and the
world’s appearance. The plants presented in this garden have been used by generations
of artists, dyers and colourists to add hues of red, blue and yellow, a rainbow of
colours, to precious tapestries, brocades, silks and cottons, some of which have kept
their colours unfaded down the centuries. These techniques, the only source of textile
colours until the 19th century, have now been replaced by synthetic products. And yet
this know-how proves indispensable when restoring the ancient works that are part of
our cultural heritage or to offer the artists of today materials that will remain intact
tomorrow.
Aquatic and water’s edge plants
A number of the plants capable of living with their feet in water are good sources of
black, such as the white water-lily, the yellow iris, the willow and the queen-of-themeadow. The latter two plants also have medicinal properties and contain active
ingredients on which aspirin is based. Some reeds are traditionally used in Japan to
dye fabrics yellow.
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Garden of Colour Plants
Garden of Colour Plants
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Plants used in dyeing have a history rich in anecdotes that are sure to surprise you.
They have on occasion influenced our own history, arousing the covetousness of men,
fascinating generations of dyers, leaving their mark on the world.
Dyeing is an art that calls for knowledge. To ensure that the colour lasts, various
techniques are used to reinforce the dye itself, including washing the fibres beforehand
in soda, amongst other things, or mordanting which fixes the dyes in the fibres. This
is often done with alum, iron sulphate or copper sulphate.
Some plants require special preparations before they can be used. Pastel leaves, for
instance, have to be chopped, crushed and left to ferment and then formed into pellets
known as “cocagnes”, a term also used to refer to a mythical land of plenty, the Land
of Cockaigne.
Garden of Colour Plants
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e garden of colour plants
Yes, that’s right, vegetables play with colour, too. During the Second World War, girls
used the brownish juice from the roots of roasted chicory to colour their legs, instead
of wearing nylon stockings. Onion skins are used to colour eggs at Easter. And several
of the plants found in a vegetable garden can dye fabrics permanently. The rhizome
in rhubarb produces varying shades of orange that are resistant to light and to washing.
In Tibet, rhubarb is the main source of the yellow and orange dyes used for Tibetan
carpets.
Indigenous woody plants
Garden of Colour Plants
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Several of our indigenous woody plants can be found in this garden, in the tubs behind
the arbour but also in the embankment along the plot. Blueberries were used as early
as in Gallic times to dye fabrics purplish blue, as were the berries of the elder, ivy or
privet. These, along with juniper berries, are among the rare dyes mentioned from
the 16th century onwards as producing green in a single dip, after mordanting with
alum or copper. Dyers in the 19th century even endeavoured to promote their use to
dye cotton and silk.
Barberry and dyer’s broom produce yellow shades, as does purging buckthorn, also
known as the “Avignon berry”. This, along with dyers’ weed and solidago, were
among the plants used to dye yellow the rouelle or badge, and the pointed hats which
Jews were required by the papacy to wear as an identifying mark from the 13th century
onwards.
The garden itself contains over 130 colour plants. A first. To make the garden clearer,
the plants are arranged by theme. Why not come and find out about some of them,
to give you a foretaste of the diversity of this collection.
Mediterranean and exotic plants
The first set of plants used in dyeing carries you to Mediterranean climes. Here you
will find a number of stars in the world of colour, including henna, the indigo plant
from the Indies, safflower, madder, Chinese indigo or pastel, as well as others that
are less well known, such the Judas tree, the common pokeberry or the strawberry
tree. Some are better known for their use as food, such as the passion flower, the fig
tree or sorghum. And yet, did you know that thyme dyes fabrics orange and oregano
purple?
Ornamental plants
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Several of the decorative flowers and shrubs commonly found in our gardens provide
superb dyes. For instance, the petals of the deep purple hollyhock produce violet to
purplish blue shades. In the 19th century, this was used industrially in Germany to dye
cotton fabrics. It is also a food colorant, used amongst other things to enhance the
colour of red wines. Marigolds, dahlias and coreopsis provide orange, as does the famous saffron. This costly spice, extracted from the stamens of the crocus, is used to
colour paella, but also the robes of Buddhist monks.
Garden of Colour Plants
Edible plants
Edible
plants
Indigenous
herbaceous plants
Ornamental
plants
Indigenous
woody plants
The five families of
plants pigments
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Garden of Colour Plants
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Entrance
Mediterranean
and exotic plants
Garden of Colour Plants
Aquatic and
water’s edge
plants