Colour-Me-Local Dye Garden
About the Garden
The Colour-Me-Local Dye Garden is a community-engaged garden that specializes in growing plants that can be used to dye fabrics. It is located in East Vancouver’s Renfrew-Collingwood neighbourhood, next to the Renfrew Ravine. The garden is used for teaching, research, producing community art, and enjoyment of the beauty of nature.
Learn, Play & Create at Gardeners’ Gatherings!
These free, drop-in events happen throughout the warmer months when the garden needs tending. Participants work together to maintain the garden and learn about dye plants and natural dyeing. Think of this as a “learning work party.” Every gathering includes different projects and tasks that we work on together. For example,
- harvesting plants and seeds
- planting, weeding and watering
- tending the compost pile
At many gatherings, we experiment with natural dyes while we work. At other sessions, you can take home seeds or flowers to transplant into your own garden.
Natural Dye Workshops
These classes offer hands-on experience with natural dyeing for all skill levels, from first-timers to experienced dyers. Workshops are an opportunity to learn and apply a variety of natural dye processes and techniques from experienced artists and artisans. Materials are provided and participants take home their work.
Some of the workshops that we host from time to time include topics such as bundle dye (flower prints), immersion dye, tie dye shibori, batik, colour shifts with mordants and modifiers, dyeing with lichen, dyeing with mushrooms, and more.
A Garden for Art Production
The garden has supported the production of major artworks:
The Natural Dyers’ Guild
The Dyer’s Guild is a network of local experienced natural dye artists. Guild members meet at the garden and Still Moon’s studio to work, experiment, collaborate, and share skills with one another. If you’re interested in joining the Dyers’ Guild, email carmen@stillmoonarts.ca.
Plants and Colours Produced at the garden
Within the garden you will find plants that are used to create a range of vibrant colours: yellow, purple, blue, green, pink, orange, rust, and more . Different parts of these plants are used to create dyes, including the roots, stems, bark, leaves, flowers, and fruits. These plants are used for dyeing materials such as cotton, linen, wool, and silk.
Reds/Pinks: Hollyhock, Lupins, Dyer’s Coreopsis, Madder, Red Columbine
Yellows: Heather, Rhubarb, Goldenrod, Marigold, Dyer’s Coreopsis, Calendula
Greens: Heather, Rhubarb, Goldenrod, Lupin, Elderberry
Blues: Woad, Indigo, Elderberry
Browns: Lupin, Dyer’s Coreopsis
Garden History
With help from community members, Still Moon Arts created the Colour Me Local Dye Garden in April 2019 as part of the Alder Eco-Arts Hub residency at Slocan Park Fieldhouse. We transformed an empty corner lot into a beautiful garden that attracts people for art-making, education, community, and enjoyment of the beautiful flowers and the outdoors.
The garden provides a space for natural dye research and education. Throughout the warmer seasons, Still Moon works with community volunteers to plant, tend, harvest, process and use plants most known for their pigments.
The garden is also a venue for community eco-art workshops where the community can create with natural materials and develop a relationship with the nature through art. Workshops include techniques such as natural dyeing, weaving, sewing, spinning, drawing, painting, and more.
The garden supports pollinators, insects, birds and wildlife, and is home to many Indigenous plants stewarded by our Indigenous neighbours.
In 2022, we added signs to the garden so that visitors can identify the plants and learn about their uses.
From 2023 to 2024 we worked with artist Clare Kenny and dozens of community members to construct a garden shed from cob, a sustainable building material made of clay and straw. The shed offers permanent on-site storage, which allows us to expand our outdoor art programming and is itself an artistic creation that adds to the visual interest of the garden. Learn more here.
In 2025 we added a cistern to collect rainwater from the roof, created a gravity fed watering system, and worked with the community to sculpt clay irrigation pots to reduce the garden’s water needs.
The garden is continually developing. Each year, we are planting native species, experimenting with new dye plants, and creating new art projects with its products.
Interested in upcoming events at the garden? Visit our Events Page, Join our Newsletter, or follow us on socials.
Location
Renfrew St. and East 24th Ave. (West Side of Renfrew Ravine)
Our Eco-Art Projects are Made Possible by our Funders and Partners
