The learning gardens under our care have been hopping with activity; and at Trillium the new St Paul’s hospital continues to rise – look for the changes in the background of Trillium photos facing West!

Our Land & Body Tea-Care program included so many beautiful shared learnings from Jess Vaira and we hope we can have her with us again next year. Just a sampling of the flowers we spent time with in the garden include nootka rose petals, lavender, yarrow, plantain, mint, lavender, lemon balm and fireweed. We quickly realized the allotted 2 hours for this program was not nearly enough, and all agreed to stay an extra hour every week to let the sessions unfold as they needed. We also realized that there is so much to learn and share beyond the time constraints of this seasonal program- so expect us to be revisiting this type of program at different times of year too.

The Soil to Skin: Relational Clothing Cohort is meeting monthly with Sharon Kallis and collectively processing 4 fleeces, while sharing the labour (and some of the spinning), for local flax to become spun linen. The cohort is also active in tending plants during stewardship sessions that give us dye for our fibres. We have had a few side adventures into community, including helping the Sparrow family with salmon canning for the smoke house, helping at a mending night with Still Moon Arts Society, and participants will be present to help at future community events. It has been an incredible experience to witness the skills and strengths of the group come together, collectively making all the decisions for our collective- yet individual – colour range. There is an undercurrent of deep work happening here in practicing group decision making that will most certainly be brought forward into the Collective Land Care decision methodologies!

The Indigo Sessions with Anna Heywood-Jones cohort has been busy at work getting many plants started, doing the early-season work of pinching off plants to increase bushiness, trialing pigment extraction with the leaves removed and rooting new plants from the cuttings. The channel for this group on the communication system EartHand uses has been busy as folx test out pigment extractions, sample test fermenting leaves and more!

---

Botanical Printing, Dying & Stitchwork: From Salvage to Future Heirloom

As we follow the seasonal palette of color offerings in the gardens led by CZarina Lobo, our colors so far celebrate the variations of chartreuse, cool greens, warm yellows, khaki, and many variations with plants such as weld, marigold, willow, and yarrow. In our prints, mordanting and print options have been explored, including Tataki-zomé and the potential found in lady’s mantle for beautiful prints on iron-dipped cloth due to its high tannin content. Autumn and winter will find dyepots shifting into oranges, reds, and purple tones before we head into our separate studios to continue our making/stitching time together online.

Our summer drop in open studios began the process of dying post consumer linen strips with plants from the gardens, and we are very excited at the test strips being woven by Corrina Hammond in her local studio as we to making mats as community gifts for a future project!

EartHand has a weekly rhythm for tending the gardens on regular summer evenings, and many of these sessions become social gatherings and informal skill share and networking opportunities too.

If you are interested in being a volunteer steward in our gardens or being in one of our long durational programs such as those described above, watch for volunteer orientation opportunities or longer durational program announcements early in the new year!