Tianran Garden

　　When I came into Tian Ran Garden（a dye shop）, I saw the rape flowers were in full bloom and several trees stood there. Each kind of plant had its own color scheme. You must be curious why this tiny plant can dye many colors. Isn’t there any secret? These plants have the magic power to produce colors such as Cissus sicyoides, Strobilanthes cusia, Indigofera, the Taiwan Ebony, Common garcinia, the Taiwanese Cherry and the most special one—Haeatoxylon. It can produce black color. The common plants are difficult to dye black color but Haeatoxylon is the exception. It only needs to dye one time for black.

 Here we were! This is Tianran Garden.

 Several kinds of plants

The presenter of Tianran Garden

Cissus sicyoides is commonly calledpearly casement.

Strobilanthes cusia

Indigofera

The Taiwan Ebony

Common garcinia

Terminalia catappa—it can be made into Chinese medicine

The Taiwanese Cherry

Curcuma—it has the function of disinfecting.

Haeatoxylon campechianum

The technique to dye colors with the plants

　　The presenter took us to Tianran workshop. There are many techniques to dye colors with the plants, but the process of each technique would be remarkably different. If you miss the detail part, then you will dye the white cloth all the time. Therefore, each process of dyeing is indispensable.

The presenter explained there were many Kinds to dye the plants

Look! This is an elaborated batik painting.

Everyone turned around to look at the pillar.

This was the dying cloth.

Rubbed Strobilanthes cusia

After we came to the Tian Ran Garden（a dye shop）, the presenter started to introduce us to all kinds of plants that can be used for dying clothes. While the presenter was introducing the Strobilanthes cusia（a flower）, she suddenly asked us, “Who wants to do an experiment?” Yi-jie Huang, Wei-ling Chen, other unfamiliar and I people raised our hands quickly to be a volunteer. The presenter readily picked some Strobilanthes cusia for us and asked us to rub it again and again with our hands. When we opened our hands, we found our hands became green and later turned blue as oxygenized with the air.

The presenter told us the color on our hands could not be washed off for two days later. We felt cheated. But we had a lot of fun experiencing the natural change of color when rubbing the Strobilanthes cusia. 

Everyone was looking for the plants for dyeing blue color.

 We rubbed Strobilanthes cusia in our hands.

Weiling rubbed hard.

Eh..How come I can’t wash it away?

The problem of color fading

　　The people had to work hard to dye the cloth, especially to dye the blue cloth.  It was hard to dye Indigofera and Strobilanthes cusia because there was Indigo ucite in the leaves. The dyeing became Indigo or blue after oxidization. It took two days, so it was a hard work to complete the work during the two days. Luckily, the intelligent ancestors discovered the way to prevent the cloth from fading by fermenting. That is, to pour rice wine and maltose before fermenting. Rice wine is the main material for fermenting and maltose is the main nutrition. This method has used for many thousand years. Dyeing cloth by fermenting really works out quite well.

The applications of dyeing to our daily life

Dyeing is not limited to dye cloth. It has become one part of our daily life. For example, it can also apply on the Klacca, which can produce glue balls. They are one of the coke’s pigments. The khaki curcuma can be used in washing clothes and socks because it has the function of disinfecting. It is also the main pigment for curry powder. After listening the detail explanation, I just knew that these many plants had so many useful functions! I had a deeper understanding of dyeing with plants.  

Klacca can produce chocolate color.

 Curcuma can produce khaki color.

Learning remarks

　　This activity let me understand the functions of dyeing with plants more and let me understand former people how to dye cloth. The method of dyeing cloth with plants is more complicated than dyeing with chemical materials. Dyeing with plants is healthier for people’s health without making any pollution. In addition, I also learnt that “ Indigo blue is extracted from the indigo plant but is bluer than the plant it comes from”. I indeed learnt a lot from this activity.