Create a rainbow in your yard

By ERIKA UNTCH

OSU Ext. master gardener volunteer intern

CANFIELD

Take a stroll through your yard and garden this season and discover trees, shrubs, flowers, herbs and veggies that can be used to create a rainbow of natural fabric dyes.

It’s a great project to do with children or to discover your own inner alchemist.

While there are many great books and online resources for how to create your projects, here are a few shades of inspiration:

Multipurposing with natives

A garden can provide color, food, attract pollinators and produce natural dyes. Using native plants ensures compatibility with our climate.

Dye colors are significantly influenced by temperature, humidity and sun exposure.

Some natives used for dyes include black-eyed Susans, butterfly milkweed, goldenrod, false indigo (Baptisia), and New-England aster.

Burnt out on kraut?

Play sorcerer for an afternoon and gather up your little apprentices to enjoy watching boiled red cabbage change a white linen wizard hat from turquoise to cranberry to hot pink in five minutes, all by allowing a spritz of (acidic) lemon juice to permeate the fiber.

What would happen if you added baking soda instead?

Summer field trip

The Praxis Natural Dye Garden, located in Cleveland, is the perfect solution to the summer blues.

Its mission is to create an indigo crop that teaches the importance of natural dye practice and to provide a nontoxic alternative to synthetic indigo used in classic American denim.

Visit praxisfiberworkshop.com to learn more.

‘Tis the season for berry-picking and wineries

Berry and wine stains are notoriously hard to remove, especially after you’ve accidentally run them through the dryer.

Instead of discarding, why not upcycle that white summer shirt into a berrylicious dye project using the same culprits.

But, did you know you could also use basil to make a berry-colored dye?

Surprise parties

You might think Zinnias would produce bold hues, but guess again. Zinnias yield pretty tan and wheat brown shades, and there is no need to separate them by color.

The same goes for dark red flowers of hibiscus, which can produce green, gray, brown or purple dyes.

When it comes to experimenting with natural dyes, expect the unexpected and have some summer fun.

Also try these:

Veggies: Ted cabbage, beets, red and yellow onions, black beans, fava beans, carrots, spinach, kale, peppers, cucumbers.

Herbs: Rosemary, mint, parsley, chamomile, St. John’s wort, sweet Annie, (purple) basil, hops, sage, lavender.

Flowers: New England aster, marigold, yarrow, yellow cosmos, hollyhock, (dark-colored) iris, sunflowers, coreopsis, dahlia, tansy, roses.

Trees and shrubs: Blackberries, elderberries, leaves of Japanese maple, acorns, black walnut hulls, birch bark, staghorn sumac flower.

To learn more about natural dyes, plants to plant and the process, check out http://go.osu.edu/dyegarden and http://go.osu.edu/plantsfordye.