it's that time of year when that noxious weed [but lovely dye plant]
Hypericum perforatum a.k.a. St John's Wort
is blooming on road and rail sides across Australia
as dyers we can do our bit for the environment and gather a useful resource at the same time
it yields colours from burgundy through yellow and green
folk medicine suggests it is useful as a medication to combat depression but i would strongly argue against that...as it induces photosensitivity [meaning you're more likely to burn in the sun] and can damage your eyesight [eating it can send a horse blind]
Thank you for this. I will put this blog post in my 'research' file. This is a garden shrub in the UK and I have twon, one in a pot waiting to go to my new allotment for planting and I've just picked some of the berries off the other (the plant flowers in June) and frozen them. As a total beginner at dyeing, it's probably the wrong thing to do! :)
ReplyDeletefreezing is an excellent means of preserving plant material
ReplyDelete