Grow Your Own Color: Best Plants For Natural Dyes

This post walks you through some of the best plants for natural dyes and planning and preparing your garden, with tips for growing and harvesting four gorgeous dye garden plants.

Reader Contribution by Mari Stuart
Updated on August 19, 2022
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by AdobeStock/ownza
This post walks you through some of the best plants for natural dyes and planning and preparing your garden, with tips for growing and harvesting four gorgeous dye garden plants.

Did you know that you can easily grow natural dye plants in your own garden — for dyeing fabric, wool yarns, or even children’s art supplies?

In fact, chances are that you already have some plants in your garden that have dye properties. Common garden plants, such as marigold, Black-eyed Susan, fennel and blackberry all release pigment when simmered in hot water, so they can be used as dyes. So can many so-called weeds that grow wild by the roadside or in the less-managed corners of your land, such as stinging nettle, pokeweed, goldenrod, and yarrow.

You could simply start experimenting with gathering such plants from your garden or the wild. For basic instructions for natural dyeing, see How to Make Homemade Natural Dyes.

But if the idea of producing your own non-toxic, über-local colors is really exciting to you, you can create a designated dye garden.

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