Dye Plants, Invasive Species, Hops Again
Nov. 26th, 2007 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenWell, did some quick poking around -- the one-handed thing tends to discourage really deep searching right now.
Indigo can be grown in the north, but only as an annual. Actual problem here in Ashfield would be that it prefers warm and humid -- so, better to grow in some sunny place in the valley, not up here. Also, as a dye stuff you have to process it with urea before it can be used. Eh... Indigo (true indigo/Indigofera tinctoria -- you can get the color from more than one plant type) has some other uses too. Oh, and used for "black" henna and hair dyeing -- lots of web pages on that out there, including cautionary info.
Please, I don't want to hear from anyone that it's all safe if it's natural. Feh. Arsenic and Foxglove (Digitalis) are natural... never take Mother Nature for granted.
Woad looks more manageable, and weld, I checked at New England Wild Flower Society to see if it's allowed here or considered invasive (did a search at their site for 'invasive species'), like woad is in some other states, and it isn't listed. However weld does seed aggressively, so you wouldn't want to sow it in the wild. Fortunately cow, goats, etc. like the stuff, so if it did escape, at least I wouldn't be worrying about it poisoning them. Still, I'd want to keep a close eye on the seeds, although there's no record online of it being invasive in the U.S. at least.
Woad is safe here as well, but not in the west/northwest - a quick search brings up problems in Utah, Montana, and Oregon, for instance.
Technically, any plant that isn't indigenous to an area is invasive. The problem is when a plant is able to take over and push native plants out -- this disrupts the entire ecosystem, changing/eliminating habitats, eliminating food sources, breaking the food chain, even affecting the weather -- the case of some places out west, invasive grasses play a part in the increase in number and heat intensity of wild fires (not the ones in the forests -- different issues there).
Here on the east coast, purple loosestrife is one of those invasive plants, depriving native wildlife of food and habitat, as well as pushing native plants out. Incredibly hard to eradicate, the only thing I seen keep it in check up here is goats.
An invasive grass that is still in the early stages here in MA is Japanese stiltgrass. It got its start in Tennessee as packing material, from which some seeds escaped. It is now considered ineradicable in CT, just south of us. NE Wildflower Soc has more info on this, and what people are doing. I bring this one up because West Springfield and East Longmeadow are a couple of the places it's invading, and some of my regular LJ readers are from or near those places. The link in this paragraph also has links in the side menu to invasive plant list for NE, for those who don't want to have to search much.
It's always a good idea to learn as much about a plant you're considering growing as possible, because of the danger to the environment/ecosystem. Every place is different -- Scotch broom is bad one place, but safe here -- we get seeds, but they can't survive the winter here. If in the future the climate were to change enough, that might not be true, but it's being monitored so that we won't be caught by surprise.
***
So, for folks who'd like to get woad, weld, indigo, and many other seeds besides, I did find an interesting site: Alchemy Works. They give some background and description of each plant, as well as growing instructions. I would check their historical research though, since they seem bent on saying Lincoln Green (like Robin Hood and his men wore in legend...) is a color, which it isn't -- it's a quality of cloth (and Scarlet's another).
But otherwise, they're a source worth checking out. They even have hops seeds (more difficult than starting from rhizomes), but don't state what kind they are, aside from being from England. An email query might clear up that question. And they talk about other uses for hops besides brewing, and have a link to an article on hops from Purdue University.
Indigo can be grown in the north, but only as an annual. Actual problem here in Ashfield would be that it prefers warm and humid -- so, better to grow in some sunny place in the valley, not up here. Also, as a dye stuff you have to process it with urea before it can be used. Eh... Indigo (true indigo/Indigofera tinctoria -- you can get the color from more than one plant type) has some other uses too. Oh, and used for "black" henna and hair dyeing -- lots of web pages on that out there, including cautionary info.
Please, I don't want to hear from anyone that it's all safe if it's natural. Feh. Arsenic and Foxglove (Digitalis) are natural... never take Mother Nature for granted.
Woad looks more manageable, and weld, I checked at New England Wild Flower Society to see if it's allowed here or considered invasive (did a search at their site for 'invasive species'), like woad is in some other states, and it isn't listed. However weld does seed aggressively, so you wouldn't want to sow it in the wild. Fortunately cow, goats, etc. like the stuff, so if it did escape, at least I wouldn't be worrying about it poisoning them. Still, I'd want to keep a close eye on the seeds, although there's no record online of it being invasive in the U.S. at least.
Woad is safe here as well, but not in the west/northwest - a quick search brings up problems in Utah, Montana, and Oregon, for instance.
Technically, any plant that isn't indigenous to an area is invasive. The problem is when a plant is able to take over and push native plants out -- this disrupts the entire ecosystem, changing/eliminating habitats, eliminating food sources, breaking the food chain, even affecting the weather -- the case of some places out west, invasive grasses play a part in the increase in number and heat intensity of wild fires (not the ones in the forests -- different issues there).
Here on the east coast, purple loosestrife is one of those invasive plants, depriving native wildlife of food and habitat, as well as pushing native plants out. Incredibly hard to eradicate, the only thing I seen keep it in check up here is goats.
An invasive grass that is still in the early stages here in MA is Japanese stiltgrass. It got its start in Tennessee as packing material, from which some seeds escaped. It is now considered ineradicable in CT, just south of us. NE Wildflower Soc has more info on this, and what people are doing. I bring this one up because West Springfield and East Longmeadow are a couple of the places it's invading, and some of my regular LJ readers are from or near those places. The link in this paragraph also has links in the side menu to invasive plant list for NE, for those who don't want to have to search much.
It's always a good idea to learn as much about a plant you're considering growing as possible, because of the danger to the environment/ecosystem. Every place is different -- Scotch broom is bad one place, but safe here -- we get seeds, but they can't survive the winter here. If in the future the climate were to change enough, that might not be true, but it's being monitored so that we won't be caught by surprise.
***
So, for folks who'd like to get woad, weld, indigo, and many other seeds besides, I did find an interesting site: Alchemy Works. They give some background and description of each plant, as well as growing instructions. I would check their historical research though, since they seem bent on saying Lincoln Green (like Robin Hood and his men wore in legend...) is a color, which it isn't -- it's a quality of cloth (and Scarlet's another).
But otherwise, they're a source worth checking out. They even have hops seeds (more difficult than starting from rhizomes), but don't state what kind they are, aside from being from England. An email query might clear up that question. And they talk about other uses for hops besides brewing, and have a link to an article on hops from Purdue University.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 07:08 pm (UTC)LOL!
Date: 2007-11-26 07:45 pm (UTC)otoh, I didn't get any cleaning done today either, aside from taking a mug to the kitchen... sigh. Later... PT this afternoon.