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UNTIL I MET James Young, early in 2025, it hadn’t really registered in my brain that some of the familiar annuals I grow from seed, like cosmos and marigolds and even purple basil or black hollyhock (above), could also double as dye plants.
James is co-owner of Grand Prismatic Seed, a gorgeous and information-packed online seed catalog based in Northern Utah, where plants that offer natural dyes are one specialty alongside regional natives and High Desert-adapted edibles and flowers.
James is passionate about the fiber arts, and he’s been an expert knitter since high school and is also deep into the art and science of natural dyes, whether sourced from garden plants or foraged ones.
In 2016, James co-founded Grand Prismatic with Guy Banner, a horticulturist at Red Butte Garden and Arboretum at the University of Utah, who works part time at their seed company.
Read along as you listen to the Jan. 12, 2026 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
natural-dye plants, with james young
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Margaret Roach: How are you, James?
James Young: Hey, Margaret. I am doing well. It’s abnormally warm here in Utah, so that’s a little jarring. We’re about 20 degrees warmer than average for this time of year.
Margaret: And I should say we’re recording in December, a little while before this is going to air. So who knows what will happen by then because the thing about the weather these days is it’s totally unpredictable. [Laughter.] We’ve been super-cold. Yeah,
James: It’s a little … One of my favorite things about farming in Utah is being able to stop weeding and worrying about things outdoors once it’s usually mid-October, but this year it’s just been so warm that we have lots of weeds germinating and growing.
Margaret: Oh, well. Keep at it. [Laughter.] So when we did a “New York Times” garden column in 2025, I was struck by just how many familiar plants, as I said in the introduction, that I think of as cutting flowers or herbs or whatever, fitting into some other usage category are also dye plants. And I want to get to some of that diversity in a minute and talk about lots of your favorites. And you have an incredible assortment in the Grand Prismatic catalog. But first, a little background on you, because if I remember correctly from the last time we spoke, your personal sort of origin story about plant-based dyeing involved knitting and a bathtub. Is that right? Were those the two key elements? [Laughter.]
James: Yeah, those are two keys. So when I was in high school, my sister and my Grandma kind of teamed up to teach me how to knit. And so knitting was my gateway into the fiber arts world. And my sister’s friend’s mom worked at a little knitting shop in Ogden, Utah, pretty close to where we lived. And she did a lot of dyeing, and most of that was in her bathtub with a lot of roving that then she would spin into yarn. And so she would talk about her dyeing process and she would mainly use things like Kool-Aid to do these really gaudy, bright colors.
Margaret: Forgive me for laughing.
James: Yeah. I can’t even imagine what her tub looked like. I’m sure it had all sorts of rings of colors in it that she couldn’t wash out. But she had mentioned that back in medieval Europe, they would use urine to dye indigo, or use in indigo dyeing, what’s referred to as a sig vat. And that kind of sparked this curiosity in me of all of the types of dyes that had been used before synthetic dyes.
And yeah, throughout human history up until the mid-1800s, all dyes were natural dyes. And as an avid hiker when I was younger and lover of plants, just learning that I could use these beautiful plants around me to color wool and then make beautiful things was just a really exciting thing. So yeah, that’s kind of what led me into natural dyes. And then when my partner, Guy, and I lived in Oregon, I really struggled with the wet weather there in the winter. And so that’s when I really made dyeing a sustained craft for myself because it was just so cozy to cook up a pot of dye plants, of flowers, lichens, other things that I could forage or grow, and then just kind of be a little witch, stirring my pot, be warm, cozy.
Margaret: Over the cauldron, huh? In the winter? [Laughter.]
James: Yeah. And then just be able to make bright, beautiful things in a time that felt pretty cold and dreary.
Margaret: And the diversity, as I said a minute ago, the diversity of things that many of them were familiar to me, but I didn’t know they were dye plants. I knew that certain plants I’d heard of, certain perennials like madder or whatever were dye plants, but I didn’t know that so many things around me were. And of course I sort of must have known in my brain somewhere, but I didn’t look at them and think that as well.
So if we were sort of going to begin an adventure and we didn’t have Kool-Aid and a bathtub, if we were as gardeners going to begin an adventure, I mean, is it some of the annuals that we would think about starting with if we wanted to try first time out? And is that where one begins to sort of …
James: Yeah, I think that annuals are a great way to start, especially if you don’t have a lot of space, because a lot of them can be grown on a patio in pots. And I think marigolds are a really great gateway plant for dyeing. Before I got into dyes, I was kind of bored by marigolds. They’re just so ubiquitous and they weren’t something that really caught my attention. And then after getting into dyeing, just seeing the range of beautiful colors you can make with them and how effortless they are to grow was just really exciting. And there’s so many varieties of marigolds that you can even use the leaves for dyeing for ecoprinting.
Margaret: So just tell us real quick what ecoprinting is, because that’s one of the really fun projects that I even think I could do. Do you know what I mean? It looks so artistic, the finished product, but it doesn’t require me to sketch something on my own, meaning that kind of artistic.
James: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So there are multiple ways to do ecoprinting. There’s a Japanese method called Tatakizome, where you actually hammer flowers into fabric [above]. So that one’s kind of fun, especially to do with younger people. I feel like it’s a fun interactive way to dye. And so that you just need to have your fabric cleaned and then you need to apply a mordant to it.
Margaret: Right. There’s that word: mordant.
James: Yeah. So mordants are really important for natural dyeing. It’s basically a mineral salt that forms a bridge between your material that you’re dyeing, your natural fiber, and your dye compound.
And so I feel like it can sound intimidating, but it’s pretty simple. You basically just measure out the right amount of mordant and then put your fibers in it. For cotton, you just need hot water and the mordant and the fiber. For protein fibers, you’ll need to heat it up on a stove top and keep it at a sustained heat for longer. But then once you have that mordant on the natural fiber for ecoprinting, you can either do the flower-pounding, that Tatakizome method, or you can arrange the flowers that you have however you’d like on the fabric, and then you basically roll it up really tightly [below]. And so I like to use a copper pipe, because I can really push down on the fabric when I roll. And so getting that pressure really tight will get really crisp prints. And then so you’ll roll it up and then tie the fabric to that copper pipe, and then I’ll just put it over a pot of steaming water for a half an hour or so, and then it just does this really nice crisp print.
But then there’s also, you can just crumble up a bunch of dried flowers instead of doing a crisp print, and even just squish it all together. It doesn’t have to be-
Margaret: Right. It can be kind of more blotches and abstract and so forth.
James: I can do like really beautiful watercolor effects. And so I feel like the eco-printing stuff is really a-
Margaret: Great entry point, isn’t it?
James: Yeah. And not only because it’s pretty simple, but you don’t need that much dye material to be able to do it. Because if you’re wanting to do an immersion dye of yardage of cotton fabric-
Margaret: You have a big vat and whatever, and we’re back to your witches’ brew or your bathtub.
James: Yes. Yeah, definitely. You’ll need a big pot, lots of material.
Margaret: And the thing, and then we’re just skimming the surface in this conversation, because obviously time is short and so forth, but there’s great instructions, your website is very rich in information. And also I’ll give the link to some of the basic how-to that’s on your website. And then you also refer people to some places, books and things, places you’ve learned over the years that you respect and think are incredible sources of the how-to information.
In meantime, we could talk about some plants [laughter]. And there are of course also perennials. So if we think we want to maybe invest in the future of dyeing, we just talked about maybe some annuals for pots and so forth that are quick, but we can also get some perennials in the ground that aren’t going to pay off for a while, and those are on your website.
What are a couple of those, for instance?
James: I think the one that I always encourage people to get in the ground, if they’re thinking that dyeing is going to be something they’ll want to be doing, is madder. So Rubia tinctorum; it is one of the best sources for a red pigment, which is difficult to get in natural dyes. And it’s really nice to get in as soon as possible because ideally you would wait three growing seasons until you harvest the roots to dye with [above]. And so the sooner you get it in, the closer you are to that harvest. And I’ve had great luck with plants that are just two years old.
Once you start growing it, if you don’t cut it back when it goes to seed, it will aggressively spread through your garden. So I also encourage people to, before the berries are ripe, just cut it back to the ground or cut those berries off so that it doesn’t spread around where you don’t want it.
But because it does spread, I often end up having one- or two-year-old plants in places that I don’t really want them. And when I’ve used those, I’ve gotten lovely coral colors sometimes.
Margaret: Interesting. Interesting.
James: But yeah, three years you’re going to have the nice large roots that will be full of the pigment as Alizarin—that’s the nice red pigment.
Margaret: And so with that, with the sort of quicker, the annual types, or the perennials, some of the perennials that will pay off earlier, what are some … I mean, I was fascinated when we spoke before. Some things, again, that are in people’s gardens, like black-eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta, black hollyhock, the Alcea rosea [photo, top of page]. I mean, these are things that are also dye plants and yet they may be in our gardens already, yes?
James: Yeah, definitely. And those will produce flowers the first year and then be perennial, which is great. And dyer’s chamomile [above] is another perennial that I think is really lovely to add to a dyer’s garden. It’s Cota tinctoria. It has a lot of different flavonoid dyes in it, a key one being Luteolin, which-
Margaret: It sounds yellow, lutea.
James: It just has the most wonderful warm yellow dye. It’s really light-fast, wash-fast, and it really layers beautifully with other natural dyes. So with indigo to get nice greens or madder for a bright long-lasting orange, and they usually will produce some flowers in their first year, but the second year they really explode. And it’s one that has really surprised me with how cold-hardy it is. And I know this year’s a lot warmer than other years in my area, but some that I have growing at my sister’s house have been blooming up until this point, so through multiple frosts. So yeah, just a super-tough plant. And it also brings in a lot of beneficial insects to the garden, which is nice.
Margaret: Right. The dyer’s chamomile. Where does the color blue come from, for instance? Or if I want green, where does that come from? We talked about some things that are red. We talked about madder, and some things that are sort of probably yellow, but where do these other colors come from?
James: For blue, there are hundreds of species of plants that contain the precursor for the indigo pigment Indigotin, but there’s probably about five main ones that humans have found to be, I guess, more cost-effective to grow for the space and the amount of dye in it. And so Indigofera tinctoria is true indigo, and that’s native to India and Southeast Asia. Indigofera suffruticosa, known as anil, is native to Central and South America. And so a lot of Mayan and Aztec dyes were dyed with that. In Europe, Isatis tinctoria or woad was probably the most common. And that’s something that a lot of people contact us for seed for, but it’s pretty invasive in the Western U.S., so it’s not legal for us to transport seeds. But in some parts of the country, you can grow it. And it has less indigo per leaf than other varieties, but still makes beautiful blues.
And then Persicaria tinctoria is Japanese indigo [above. being harvested], and that’s what we have found to be the most adaptable of the indigo-bearing species to grow in the U.S. From Alaska to Texas, you can grow Persicaria tinctoria. And so that’s probably one of our favorite plants to grow, and just grown as an annual, and it has a really high content of indigo. And so that’s a great one to use for blue, of course, but also pairing with yellow dyes for green, because green is actually… It’s strange to think that green’s hard to get with natural dyes since you look outside and everything is green, but-
Margaret: That’s why I asked, because I wondered, is it the easiest thing to get or the hardest? Because it was going to be one or the other [laughter].
James: It’s the harder ones to get for sure. And so usually pairing indigo with a yellow dye is a great way to get green. Something like the black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirta, that can get you olivey-green color. It’s slightly less light-fast, I would say. And if you spill something that’s acidic on it, it will kind of change the color. Sometimes I’ll get weird maroon splotches with pH changes, but it’s definitely a fun one to use for greens, just not as stable.
Margaret: So besides selling seed for things that we’ve been talking about and many, many other possibilities, you also sell harvested material to use for dyeing. Is that true? Did I make that up?
James: Yeah. Usually I think in 2025 it wasn’t till July that we posted our dried dye materials. And each year it’s a different mix of things. Usually we’ll hoard a bunch of dye materials for our own projects, and then when we have overflow, we’ll list it to customers.
Margaret: So some people get into it that way; they try it that way as well.
James: Yeah. And I think that it’s nice to get some material that someone else has grown if you don’t have a lot of space to grow things or you’re wondering if dyeing is something that you’ll actually be enjoying, but there’s also a lot of stuff you can harvest. A lot of invasives just in your neighborhood can be used for dyeing. And so I love growing things and being able to tend things, but if you don’t have space or time to do that, you can definitely find a list of invasives in your area that can be used for dyeing.
Margaret: So let’s talk about some foraged things that you … I think you mentioned lichen at one point, for example, some foraged things that people might recognize the names of or whatever that you’ve also used.
James: When we lived in Oregon, we would like to go out into the forest after big windstorms and find lungwort lichen that had fallen from branches, and that would do a really beautiful cinnamon color on wool. Oak galls are really good. They’re high in tannins. And so with that, and with the lichen, you don’t need to use a mordant if you don’t want to because of that high tannin content.
Here in Utah, we have a lot of phragmites that grows along waterways, that chokes out native wetlands, and that can be used for a greenish-colored dye. Again, not as light-fast as indigo, but still lovely. In the Western states, like I mentioned, woad being invasive, there is so much dyer’s wood up in the mountains here. And so people in our region can just go harvest free blue in the wild. And not only are you getting a nice pigment or dye, but you are also getting rid of that invasive that kind of chokes out the native habitat.
Margaret: And you dye, not just fabrics, you dye your wool as well, right? You dye wool for your knitting.
James: Wool is probably the main thing I’ve dyed over the years. I recently switched over to cotton because my sister has been teaching me how to quilt. And so it’s been a fun transition to move over to cotton, but yeah.
Margaret: Well, James Young—all the fiber arts; you’re trying everything, right?
James: I love to dabble. I definitely say I’m not a master in any of them.
Margaret: Well, it looks pretty good to me. The stuff that I’ve seen of yours looks pretty good to me. I’m so glad to talk to you again. And as I said, we just dabbled a little bit in some of the how-to, but I’ll give links to the information on your site for a deeper dive, and also some of the references that you recommend. I’ll do give those links. And also, of course, to your catalog, which is pretty spectacular.
And as I said in the introduction, isn’t just dye plants, a lot of regional natives and High Desert-adapted flowers and edibles and so forth. So especially for Western listeners, really some beautiful things. And as I said, I’m just happy to speak to you again. So thanks for making time today.
James: Yeah, thank you so much.
(All photos from Grand Prismatic Seed, used with permission.)
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MY WEEKLY public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its 16th year in March 2025. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station in the nation. Listen locally in the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Eastern, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the Jan. 12, 2026 show using the player near the top of this transcript. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
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