Making Pigment from Invasive Species: Wild Madder

Wild Madder (Galium mollugo)

Back when I lived in New York City, I would pick up littered plastic bags to make art. Now that I live in the Hudson Valley, I started experimenting with invasive species that grow around me.

I have no knowledge of plants. Since some of those invasive species can be harmful, I figured I should have someone knowledgeable help me figure this out. So I went to Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program in Ghent and joined weeding their garden.

With the help of a kind gardening crew, I was able to find Wild Madder.

Other names for this plant include:

Common names: smooth bedstraw, false baby’s-breath, wild madder

Scientific names: Galium erectum, Galium mollugo var. erectum

Ecological threat:

Invades grasslands, open woodlands, meadows, pastures, riverbanks, and disturbed areas such as roadside ditches.

Tolerates a wide variety of soil types, from silt and sand to dense red clays.

A competitor to both long-lived and short-lived forage crops. Quickly crowds out native and non-native crop plants.

It contains a toxin that causes toxicity in animals.

(via Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

Cooking wild madder roots

I cleaned the madder, cut the roots into small pieces, and cooked them for about 20 minutes. The water turned dark red pretty immediately. Next, I threw some alum powder and washing soda into this dye water. Then I poured it through coffee filters.

Left: Filtering. Right: I sanded scraps of 2x4s while waiting for the roots to cook. I’m going to stencil paint on them.

Once the pigment dried, I ground it with mortar and pestle. The result looks surprisingly promising. Now I am going to stencil paint with it and see if it actually works!

The result