Several summers ago, I began gathering Himalayan balsam from local riverbanks and paths in the Highlands. Beautiful in flower but aggressively invasive, it crowds out native plants and spreads quickly along waterways. For a textile artist interested in local colour, it posed a complicated question: could a plant that is actively being removed from the landscape also become a useful dye material?
This work was part of a wider local project exploring uses for harvested Himalayan balsam, including natural dyeing and a collaboration with local gin makers. The project was covered by the Press and Journal in 2023: Himalayan balsam project coverage
This was never about presenting dyeing as an ecological fix. It was about paying attention to the materials already around me, learning through practice, and letting a difficult local plant become part of a wider conversation about place, colour and making.
The Himalayan balsam project remains one of the clearest examples of why I am drawn to place-based textile work. It asked me to look closely at a familiar landscape, work with a material that was abundant but complicated, and follow its possibilities through colour, fibre and story. The dye experiments were small, practical acts of attention, but they opened up a larger conversation about what grows around us, what we remove, and what creativity can do along the way.
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