I am and have always been curious, which is what made me want to grow Persicaria Tinktoria in my garden. Persicaria Tinctoria is one of the species of indigo – Japanese indigo. Kind of crazy considering that the garden, although it isn`t at a high altitude, is still in a cold area. Yes, a cold area, but I have come across posts in blogs and social networking sites describing the successful growing of Persicaria Tinctoria in England and Germany, and they are well to the north of my garden and in far less favourable climates.  

So, I shouldn`t have any difficulties. Yees, all said and done, I will grow it … yees, buut, where will the seeds come from … I looked around the Internet and found seeds from faraway Brazil. The seeds were from plants grown in a clean, chemical-free area. They arrived in less than a month.

In February 2020 I wished myself good luck and I sowed the seeds in disposable coffee cups. They sprouted fast, but I was a little lazy/sloppy and I didn`t thin them out, so I lost a big part of them, but two sprouts started developing very well and they were planted in the garden accordingly.

I put them in a sunny spot, but in this place the soil is pure clay, and if it dries out, it becomes as hard as stone. I mulched them with straw. They were feeling good, but it looked like/looked as if that the summer would be over before they managed to form seeds. I turned out to be right, the autumn set in, it was almost/nearly time for the frosts to start falling. I had two options – one of them was to cover them with a frost blanket, and the second was to move them to pots and take them into the flat. I chose the second option. But before moving them into the flat, I decided to cut some branches and to see whether they would root in water.

Oh, yes, they rooted very quickly and from every node of the stem at that. I planted the new plantlets in wooden boxes. But new big bushes didn`t develop from them (probably the conditions in the flat weren’t good; I don`t know, I will try again this year), but flower spikes formed immediately. Of course, this fact didn’t worry me, because after all for me it was important to maintain my own seeds. When they ripened, I collected the seeds. I picked all leaves from the stems and I dried them. Somewhere I had come across information that dye can also be obtained from dried leaves. When I have enough time, I will look for information again and will give it a try.

February 2021 came – in one pot there were fallen seeds from the previous plant which sprouted like a brush, so I didn’t have to sow the seeds which I had collected (unfortunately, I read somewhere that the seeds remain viable only for a year – I will also have to check that). When they grew a little, I picked them out into small peat pots, and on 13th of June I planted them into the garden, in the bed under the linden. This Saturday, 19th of June I saw that the plants were feeling good in the garden, unfortunately, the leaves had been partially eaten by slugs, but I hope I will soon manage to tackle this problem. I wish myself luck, I hope I will grow enough leaves this summer to be able to obtain dye through fermentation or at least to try to make print with fresh leaves, and if I don’t have enough time, I will dry the leaves – time will tell.