Blue, a visible colouring our landscape. Sea and sky, river and flower and yet elusive when it comes to capturing that colour into a viable lasting range of shades.

In the history of Scotland the plant discovered for that purpose was Woad.

I grow this biennial plant in my garden and this year was seed year so next year should be a good cropping time.

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This year I grew two varieties of Japanese Indigo and also propagated many of the Indigo Tinctoria tree, a graceful and happy plant. It is now mid November and I still am cropping my Indigo plants for fresh leaves and the seed is ripening.

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"We think blue with Indigo but in fact it produces many different colours.."

We think blue with Indigo but in fact it produces many different colours depending on the method of extracting dye-from salted methods to fermentations of vats. A glorious plant to immerse yourself in and easy to grow from seed or cuttings in our Scottish climate. The frost will come and I know these nurtured Japanese plants will not survive our winter. What they leave behind is pure magic.