BCEP is working with Hive on their new natural dyes project (you may have seen some recent T&A articles), and although there is Heritage Lottery funding for the basic project, we’d like to spread it further and encourage others to set up dye gardens – so we would love donations of any spare plants of the following:

• Hypericum perferatum (St John’s wort)
• Galium verum (ladies bedstraw)
• Reseda luteola (weld)
• Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife)
• Genista tinctoria (Dyers greenweed)
• bronze fennel
• Rubia tinctorum (madder)
• Humulus lupulus (hop)

They don’t necessarily need potting up, just put them in a carrier bag or similar!

I or a colleague can collect if local, though it’s harder if it’s a long way!
Jane Robinson
BCEP