How it feels
Foraging for dye plants is like panning for gold. In old American western films you will often see a gold prospector, swishing water and gravel around a shallow metal basin. He concentrates intently on his search, until suddenly his eyes widen and he becomes very excited. He has found GOLD! Well foraging is a bit like that; to find exactly what I am searching for is just marvellous.
Ideal conditions
Plants that give colour include the latin word tinctoria in the name, meaning that the plant yields colour eg. Indigofera Tinctoria, yields the colour blue. It grows in the tropics and requires full sun with a temperature of 22-28 degreesC for 4-5 months. The indigo plant can be invasive in the perfect conditions. I am not going to find any in the Sussex countryside. Neither will I find madder (red dye) or woad (blue dye) despite being used for the Bayeux Tapestry, (which was actually an embroidery). I cultivate madder and woad in my garden. They have been successful, as long as the weather is kind. Some plants require the right amount of shade and it is likely that they will only be right for harvesting at a particular time of year. Each colour giving plant is different from another as to their optimum growing requirements. I may see a patch of greenery, recognise it, decide that it will give me green colour but realise that it will be mature enough in one week only to find 7 days later that it has been strimmed!