Inside the innovative Dye Garden on the Glyndebourne estate

Glyndebourne is known for its opera festival, but its garden is not only a showstopper – the plants are providing the dye for the costumes

Mention Glyndebourne and stunning revivals of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess spring to mind along with breathtaking performances by legendary singers over the years including Luciano Pavarotti, Joan Sutherland and Kiri Te Kanawa.

But away from the spotlight is a recent addition that is helping members of the diverse repertory make a very colourful performance on stage.

Step forward Andrea Benson who has grown a dye garden on the estate to harvest and create natural dyes for Jenny Mercer to use, enabling certain looks and costumes for the cast.

(Image: Andrew Hasson)

Far from being some wilted flowers or perhaps an art installation, flowers and plants in the garden are grown for their ability to produce certain hues to turn into the dyes. Harvested and dried, they are given to Jenny, the dye room supervisor at the opera house in Glyndebourne, who creates the magic.

Natural dyes were first used in costumes for the 2022 production of The Wreckers. Since then, they have been used in some form across all Glyndebourne productions, whether simply to tone down a bright white shirt so it doesn’t stand out too much under the stage lights, or used to create an entire look for a character.

The idea was sparked when Jenny, 50, attended a natural dyeing course at Plaw Hatch Farm, near East Grinstead, which was led by Deborah Barker from The South East England Fibreshed, the society set up to promote a more regenerative textile industry.

And it was all yellow–Jenny uses natural dye grown in the garden at Glyndebourne (Image: Andrew Hasson)

‘It was just amazing. It was the first time I had seen it was possible,’ explains Jenny, who has worked at Glyndebourne for the past 15 years.

‘At Glyndebourne, we are known for our garden and productions. I thought: “Why are we not doing this and combining both?”’

Jenny describes the process as the circle of life. ‘The idea of Fibreshed is that nobody creates a carbon footprint unnecessarily. No one uses synthetic rubbish in their threads or their dyes; it’s about growing plants, using local products and making clothes locally.’

She teamed up with Andrea, 54, who has been a gardener at Glyndebourne for the past seven years. From a gardener’s point of view, it was an exciting and unique project.

‘I used to work at the Horniman Museum in London and had been involved in a dye garden there,’ explains Andrea. ‘It was something I was really interested in; at home I crochet and spin wool. It was fascinating, but this was a complete learning curve.’

Glyndebourne Dye Room where the colours needed are worked out (Image: Andrew Hasson)

The display gardens in the museum were more educational – plants were grown to show each colour. However, for the project at Glyndebourne they needed to work out how to get enough quantity of a reliable dye and what plants were needed to obtain it.

Coupled with Andrea’s past knowledge and Jenny’s experience the duo started to research what could be grown. They began planning the Dye Garden in 2019, trialling plants that could provide the right colour in the right amount. ‘There were plants we knew would work,’ says Andrea. ‘Weld and dahlias are well-known dye plants, but then you have different types.

‘For example, there are lots of persicaria which people use as ornamental plants, but persicaria tinctoria (Japanese indigo) is the one which produces a dye; it gives blue from the leaves.’

Some plants worked on paper but were not practical. ‘Jenny would find a plant with a good source of colour and I’d have to say, we can’t grow that here because it needs tropical conditions or it needs acid soil,’ says Andrea.

Jenny agrees. ‘We’ve had a few plants that are too time-consuming to grow and pick,’ she says. ‘Safflower is beautiful, but the technique to get the colour is very long-winded and the amount is absolutely minuscule.’

Last year they grew 14 different plants in mainly primary colours, as well as using some from the main garden. Ironically, green has to be a mix and fresh green is quite hard to make.

Gardener Andrea Benson grows flowers and plants for their colour in the dye garden (Image: Andrew Hasson)

Black can be obtained from trees – oak galls, also known as gall nuts, are found on many species of oak tree and produce a rich black dye.

Andrea has just saved some of the chips from a couple of cherry trees that have been felled recently. ‘It’s like a warm pinky beige,’ says Jenny. ‘I use it quite a lot. We now have potato sacks of it.’

Plants at Glyndebourne are now grown chemical-free – did this prove a challenge? ‘The occasional sheep has been found in the garden and we have a lot of pheasants that come in and make little dust baths in amongst my seed beds, dispersing them,’ says Andrea.

‘I’ve always found that because we are growing things in much larger quantities than people would in their back garden, if two or three get eaten, we’ve still got a lot of plants. We have a nice ecosystem, so we might have slugs and snails, but we’ve also got a lot of birds and hedgehogs and things that would come in and eat those things.’ The biggest challenge for Jenny is not knowing in advance what the designers are going to want. ‘I can’t tell Andrea necessarily what the colour palette is for that year for those costumes. We do six operas at this time of year and last year we did Saul; it’s a lot of black. I could have used natural dyes, but the weight of those period dresses and corsets versus the weight of dye I would have needed to make them all match was too much work. But we did manage to do all the corset laces as it was more manageable.’

The Dye Garden at Glyndebourne, East Sussex (Image: Andrew Hasson)

The process is quite labour-intensive and sometimes there isn’t the time to get the fabric ready. ‘I had two weeks to prepare for Falstaff and used black hollyhocks and coreopsis seed heads for Falstaff’s grungy vest top and pants,’ Jenny explains. ‘The turnaround and what designers call the organic process of creating a piece, sometimes changes during the rehearsal period, so I have to be on the ball.’

Planning begins in January each year. Andrea takes everything that has been dried the previous year, so Jenny is working with last year’s plants. They will then draw up a list of what they have already and adapt what is grown each year.

‘Last year is probably the first year we’ve properly sat down,’ explains Andrea. ‘We are both practical, creative people, however, we’re not big on the technical spreadsheets. But using them we were able to see how much of the dried plants we’ve got and what we do and don’t need.’

A mix of annuals and perennials are grown and they have discovered that many are herbal remedies. ‘Plants that were used for all sorts of things are quite useful as dyes,’ says Jenny. ‘A lot of them called tinctoria are actually remedies as well: bay leaf is a nice colour and thought to be good for digestion. The other amazing thing about natural dyes is that you can use different parts of the plant, so I’ve got a lot of weld stalks, which produces yellow, but I haven’t got many flowers or buds, which is the brighter yellow.’

(Image: Andrew Hasson)

Andrea starts harvesting and drying the flowers throughout the summer and then at the end of the season will dig up any roots. These will then be collected for next year. When we talk, she has just collected the first harvest of flowers to dry.

Although they are getting into a rhythm of what is needed, the pair still like to experiment and find something new.

Their latest discovery is a Japanese plant, Murasaki, used to create purple from the root. It’s a colour that was highly prized by the aristocracy and royals particularly in the Elizabethan era (late-16th century).

‘It’s not that well-known in this country,’ says Jenny, ‘And it’s really difficult to find information on how to use it because any available information is in Japanese.

‘I managed to find one blog but the instructions were very complicated.’ They both agree it can be a real science and has been fascinating. I ask if they are looking forward to using purple dye next year: ‘No, because it takes years to cultivate,’ Jenny says.

‘Purple was originally made from a mollusc, but you needed thousands for a gram of dye. Basically, the price of your mortgage would be a piece of cloth for your cape. It’s spoken to my history-loving side.’

Plants can be used fresh, dried or frozen – shops sell the powdered form. The dyeing process depends on the strength of colour required, but it’s generally weight of dry fabric to weight of plant.

(Image: Andrew Hasson)

‘You need a clean dye, so any tiny bits of pollen have to be sieved out so you don’t get patches,’ Jenny says.

‘You can’t have a really famous principal standing there with a spotted collar on!’

‘The cloth is mordant in a metal salt, to help the dye bind, but you don’t always need one, because tannins, which are in trees and a lot of bark, has a natural mordant. But it does help with light fastness. We can keep things for 20 years, so we need to make sure that our costumes stay in one colour.’ The fabric is then submersed in the liquid dye and simmered to get the depth of colour required. Jenny describes the process as ‘slow textiles’.

For this year’s performance of Tosca, shirts and T-shirts have been dyed using a mix of cherry bark and gold braid brightened using weld and added to smocks to create an ecclesiastical effect. Costumes are also aged to look older. ‘Falstaff’s tennis shoes were dyed by dipping the plimsole in the dye, so the rubber didn’t meet the water.

‘Instead of using a chemical dye that’s going to go down the drain, I can now do this using our plants.’

The two women obviously have a mutual respect and over the years have built up a wonderful working relationship.

(Image: Andrew Hasson)

‘No one was really sure if it would work or what it would look like but everyone has been so enthusiastic,’ explains Andrea. ‘I still get confused comments when I say that I grow dye plants, people look at me and say: “Your plants are dying?” Andrea says, smiling.

‘The gardens are an integral part of Glyndebourne. It feels as though it’s really drawn me into the experience of not just creating a garden for people to see, and enjoy, but being part of the productions – connecting the two.’.

For opera tickets and to enjoy the gardens at this year’s festival go to: glyndebourne.com