Plant Dyeing Winter Workshop at the Edinburgh Botanics

Thanks to Mimi at Eats Rosyth for inviting us to a held a fabulous Plant Dyeing Winter Workshop held by Katrina Wilde at the Rosy Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh and enjoyed by 15 volunteers and staff from both gardens; it was interesting, hands on and the results were remarkable.

We were also shown the experimental and kitchen gardens and encouraged us to visit in the spring. They have several badger sets so can’t grow root vegetables!

If you’re interested, there are volunteering opportunities at the Botanics on a Wednesday

When community gardens work together, the impact is significant, we reach more people and that is our shared aim. Our organisations also benefit from the by sharing knowledge and know-how and our social network increases exponentially. Many of us waste time, resource and money by re-inventing the wheel in a dark room. My limited experience has found the staff and volunteers are keen to work with other community gardens but some of the Trustees are less enthusiastic. My guess is that many are from the commercial world, where businesses with similar aims are seen as “the competition” and are to be treated as such and avoided at all costs. By charities working together their strength and impact dramatically increases.