Hampton Court conservators wanted to create a garden within the grounds which would show off the plants used in tudor times to create the dyes for Henry VIII’s tapestries. The garden needed to use authentic plants and also be an attractive feature of the grounds in its own right.
Silver birch were used to give height, and smokebush, weld, madder and woad formed the bulk of the structural underplanting. Twenty different dye plants were used in the final design.
Visualisation of the finished border
Planting plan of the dye garden
