a love affair with black knight scabiosa

i confess that i have a new (mildly obsessive) plant love - black knight scabiosa. i think it might just be the most magical dye plant i’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting and working with.

this year was the first year that i grew it, and also incidentally was the first year that i got to dye with it and handle fibres that had been dyed with it.

the experience of having it in my garden was initially lacklustre. it took ages (comparative to my black magic bachelor’s button, coreopsis, and marigolds) to bloom, and then when it began blooming it took what sometimes felt like weeks to fully unfurl itself into its complete flower. of course, this lesson in patience is one that my garden forces me to learn over and over again in general, and is one of the reasons this triple-fire sign values it so much. still, it’s not always easy for me. once the flowers were in bloom though, they quickly became my favourite. their dark and stunning shape made for such a unique addition to my back lane garden, and they were a favourite of the bees. there was more than one morning when i would come out to harvest and find a little bee napping off a pollen coma on top of a sturdy scabiosa flower, and they also provided a safe spot to hold onto during rainstorms. i think those were the moments that made me fall in love with it as a garden companion.

then, the first dye pot. oh my god, it was love at first sight. as i dipped the wool, silk, and cotton/linen velvet into the rich purple waters, i was astonished because i knew from others that i should be expecting a rich green from my final pots. i was so curious to see the alchemy unfold. and then the first batch of silk came out of the pot, and i was officially smitten. i immediately darted around the house looking for more items to put into additional pots, finding altar cloths, small doilies for dollhouse rugs, a silk top that i deeply love but had lost its original silky lustre due to too many wears, silk ribbon for bell garlands, and larger swaths of silk velvet to sew into wedding projects (am i getting married anytime soon? no. do i care about this fact? also no.).

i’m already dreaming about the future scabiosa gardens i will grow each year, the lake pigments i’ll turn into paints, the sweaters i’ll knit with precious skeins of it, the lingerie i’ll sew with silks dyed a rainbow through various shifts in ph, the classrooms i’ll infiltrate with glass jars of scabiosa blooms to convince kids to join me in my obsession… i can’t remember the last time i was this enamoured with a dye plant, and i can’t wait to see what else we get up to together in future years. honestly, i’m also just looking forward to find more napping bees in my garden during summer mornings…

if you’d like to find my recipes for this darling along with more plant facts, check out my black knight scabiosa entry in the creative coven community’s colour journal.