Episode 2741

- [Narrator] Indigo, it's a plant that contains a clean and natural colorant. It can be produced in a sustainable way, and it's a viable economic alternative crop for farmers. Matt Kerske is at a research farm in Robertson County, where an agricultural startup company is banking on the marketability of natural dyes and the participation of Tennessee farmers. Plus we'll tour Savage Garden that has its roots dating back to 1920. Its glory days are here again. Join us. Sharing the big dream of making pure and vibrant, consistent and scalable bio-based dyes.

- Crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton have long been American staples in the agricultural scene. However, a crop that is just as old but not as widely known, that was dye plants, or indigo, Sarah Bellos is using Stony Creek Colors to make her sustainable approach into the textile industry using just this very plant. So Sarah we're standing out in one of your research plots with indigo surrounding us. Tell us a little bit about what you're finding out here, and some of your history at this location.

- Yeah, so we're here in Robertson County, this is the area that Stony Creek Colors works with contract farmers to produce our indigo varieties. So at this research field we are growing a few of the different varieties of indigo containing plants. We have the tropical indigo, we're growing Japanese indigo, and so here the company does research into ways that we think farmers could increase their production of the indigo biomass, and ultimately the indigo pigment that we extract from the plants for our customers. So we do everything from variety development, we produce the seed for the farmers, and then we go and harvest it. Should they be fertilizing, which variety should they be using if they have wet soils, or maybe a more upland soil. So here is a place for us to test ideas that we might have about how could a farmer do something a little bit differently, maybe change plant populations. And then also just the everyday of when is a plant ready for harvest, how many harvests can we get a year, things like that.

- [Matt] So you're really working kinda lock and step with your partner farmers on kind of an every day, every week kind of basis. How are they responding to that initially I guess? That's kinda, might be a little bit unique to them, where they're just kind of more used to just setting and going on their own property. You're kinda working hand in hand. How has that been?

- Yeah, so this farm, or this plot, is actually stationed at one of our farmer's fields. So we have soybeans in the background that we just harvested, their tobacco crop. Indigo is a higher labor crop than something like soybeans, but it's a lot less labor than a crop like tobacco. And so we're really trying to position indigo as a part of diversifying their farm, and that might not be as high labor or as high risk as something like tobacco. Where the company, Stony Creek Colors, does some of the work of harvesting and seed, taking the product to market, that would be otherwise really a huge challenge for the farmers.

- Wow. That's really a fascinating type business model. Tell me a little bit about how it all began and how we find ourselves here, fast forward many years, in a research plot farm?

- Yeah, so I started using indigo in the course of having a business that did natural dying with my sister. And at the time I was helping run the community farm in West Nashville. We were growing vegetables, and I thought, well why aren't we growing the dye that we're using ourselves. And in kind of trying to scale up that business model we realized that the source of a lot of natural dyes, that you're just getting from the open market, it's not always the most transparent, so sometimes you can't really be sure they're even natural dyes that you're purchasing. They might be petroleum based dyes.

- Synthetic.

- Synthetic dyes. And so really growing our own was a way to control the supply chain, and just learn more about these incredible plants. That sort of evolved into trying to work with more factories and textile mills to use natural dyes, and realizing that their biggest challenge was the consistency and sort of the volume of what was out there. So there weren't natural dyes at a purity, that textile mills could really utilize at a large scale. I left that company to start Stony Creek Colors really to be focused on this big problem in textiles, which is all this pollution from textile dying, due to the use of synthetic colors. But also kind of marrying that with my love of agriculture and wanting to be working with farmers. So really positioning these crops as alternative crops for growers, at the same time as solving this other big textile pollution problem.

- Whew. Wow. That's a lot.

- So we're here in Robertson County.

- Yeah, no, I love that story. It's such a robust journey of where you've been. I can't believe, I can't imagine the challenges that you probably have had over that course of those years. 'Cause not only are you working with farmers, you're working with textile manufacturers, probably working with brands, the end user, and how that's getting sold to the consumer. Could you highlight some of the, maybe largest challenges that you've had, and maybe some of your accomplishments as well?

- [Sarah] Yeah, the challenges are too many probably, to talk about. We've had really poor germination, we've had challenges with harvesting. So really our extraction method is really robust and scalable, but getting enough biomass to the factory to really make that a turn key operation has been, we've been on a steep learning curve.

- [Matt] Sure.

- [Sarah] We certainly know why natural indigo as a crop has not been scaled up in recent times. But it was only about 120 years ago that natural indigo was the source of all blue dyes, so synthetic indigo is a recent occurrence. And we really feel like the chemicals that are used in synthetic indigo, like cyanide, and benzene, and formaldehyde, those are not chemicals that we want touching our skin, yet they are because that's the cheap way to make indigo right now. So it's really important that we solve some of those big challenges around harvesting and seed and production, because we need a replacement for synthetic indigo, and we think that that replacement can be all these amazing plants that we see here, that are really chemical factories in their own right.

- That's right. And so that's some of the challenges. And as far as some of the accomplishments that you've had though, over spanning so many years--

- Yeah well--

- Acreage and production, you have quite a few farmers.

- Yeah, so we have certainly more natural indigo production than anyone else in the united states. We have some really amazing brands that use our dye in their clothing. So, Patagonia for example, just launched a big clean color campaign, using our natural indigo.

- Fantastic.

- We've had, Lucky Brand has a huge Made In America line right now, out with about eight pairs of jeans. So we're seeing large brands that have really wanted to adapt natural indigo, and now we've given them a way to do so. And it's bringing money into Tennessee farm economy so it works for us.

- Wow, that's really incredible. Great job, great job.

- Thanks.

- So Sarah, we're standing amongst a large field of Japanese indigo. Tell me a little bit about it, starting off with its true Latin name, and then kind of the production elements of what all gets used in the process.

- Yeah, so the Japanese indigo is in the buckwheat family, it's related to smartweed, and its Latin name is persicaria tinctoria. It used to be known as polygonum tinctorium, and so it is smartweed, knotweed family. It's an annual. We actually harvest the leaves for our production. And here we're in the middle of a variety trial, so you can see some leaves that have more of a rounded shape to them, some that are a little pointy and longer. These plants are definitely ready for harvesting. We didn't harvest these because they are in what we call a buffer row in our research plots. But these lower plants have already been harvested one or two times, and so you can keep going through as a gardener--

- Yeah, how many times do get harvest?

- In the season if you're irrigating and fertilizing, you can probably get up to five cuttings with this Japanese indigo. So it's pretty prolific in terms of its vegetative growth, and as a dye production that's actually what you want. So I've picked a couple leaves that are going to show us a little bit about indigo. So the leaf you have, it doesn't look blue right, it just looks green.

- [Matt] Right.

- [Sarah] The chemical in here is a colorless precursor to indigo called indican. In our extraction process we actually release the indican and an enzyme that is also natural occurring in the leaf to form the blue color. So you can see this blue, maybe an insect bit a little bit of this and it exposed it to oxygen. So some places where a leaf is stressed, you might see a little bit of blue. If you mash this leaf up, maybe just in the course of talking, we'll get a little bit of blue action on it. And so when the leaf is fully dried, it will actually dry completely to blue.

- It's amazing.

- Dye is in the leaves.

- Only in the leaves? Not stems, roots?

- Not in the stem, not in the root, not in the flowers. But both the Japanese indigo and the tropical indigos are really good for late season nectar for plants, or for the bees rather.

- [Matt] Sure, when nectar's hard to find.

- [Sarah] Exactly. So from September through about late October, right before frost, when both plants will die in Tennessee, they'll be, their indeterminate flower, so they'll be producing flowers throughout the whole time.

- You brought up a good point, these are all tropical annual types, so these are going to see their one time a year use, and then you'll plant them again next year.

- Yeah, so the Japanese indigo is always an annual, no matter where it's grown. The tropical would be a perennial in tropical regions, here in Tennessee, anywhere above zone 10, you're not gonna be able to over winter them out in the field. You could dig them up and bring them into a greenhouse if you wanted to. And that would certain work to keep your plants alive. It would take a lot of dye to get there.

- Look, there you go.

- Yeah I've just been kinda like mushing this up and you can see that it released a little indigo.

- There's dye in your hand.

- Yeah. And so it's a reaction of oxygen hitting the indican in the presence of the enzyme that really allows the indigo chemistry to form. We have a different method than grinding it. So we actually do a water extraction where we're soaking the leaves and then we're removing the leaves before the indigo gets trapped up in here. So in a little bit if we came back these leaves would be really blue. Indigo is totally insoluble in most everything, and especially water. And so you wouldn't be able to get, say for example we had these blue leaves, there's really limited, we have limited methods for extracting indigo once it's blue in the leaf. So all of our production is based around getting the leaves as quickly as we can to our factory and get them soaking in water. And then starting that extraction in a really controlled way, that's how we maximize the yield per acre, and obviously that's important for us and our farmers.

- [Matt] Wow.

- I mean, I think the important thing probably for your viewers to know is you don't have to know all the science of indigo, and how to do it exactly perfectly in order to dye some things blue, or in order to have great pollinator crops in your garden, so it is really worth while garden crop for people that are just interested in looking and seeing if the blue is created. And leaves themselves, there's methods for putting leaves in hot water, and dipping silk in it, and getting some dye on your fabric right away without going through the extraction process. And so it is, there's always something to learn for us even if we have hundreds of acres of indigo growing, we're still learning about the crop, and for the home gardener that definitely would be the same case.

- A learning curve for the home gardener to kinda use and experiment with a little bit. Tell me a little bit about the farmers and some of their returns. Either return on investment, or some of the conversations that you have with them. Why is this appealing to them, what have they kind of gravitated towards? Either financially or just beginning to learn about subsidizing their income, getting away from traditional crops like tobacco, and into something like indigo.

- So as a company, Stony Creek really sees indigo as part of a diversified cropping system. So we don't wanna replace soybean monoculture with indigo monoculture. We really are growing both varieties, the buckwheat variety, and the legume variety, to be able to offer alternative crops in a more sustainable fashion for growers, and provide a return that's compelling for the grower and compelling for our company. So the tropical indigo for example, it doesn't just fix nitrogen, but it also in a nematode suppressant. So I was just talking with the soybean farmer that grows indigo also and he has a hotspot of nematodes in his soil, where he can see the soybeans yield has declined a ton. And so planting two years of a tropical indigo is a way to naturally be a nematode suppressant to lower those pest populations.

- Fantastic.

- And so the farmers, they might be looking at indigo to sort of reduce some of their labor costs on their farm, since as a company we're going and doing all the harvesting with our equipment. They don't have a huge equipment investment at all, they really should have no equipment investment, they're planting it with the same equipment they're using to plant tobacco. And then we harvest. So they can do what they're good at, which is growing the crop, and we can take care of the other parts hopefully which are many, but certainly it requires a really great collaboration and partnership with them.

- Wow, fantastic.

- When you're on the national register of historic houses and gardens, you know there has to be a rich history and abounding beauty. We are in Fountain City, outskirt of Knoxville Tennessee, and I'm about to take you through the gates to see this amazing property. This beautiful garden was begun in 1917. Arthur Savage was an immigrant from England. He was responsible for three gardens that were built in this ares. When Arthur and Hortense moved in there were no trees, just a sink hole and a pig pen. And within just one year, he had made elaborate flowerbeds and had planted many trees. Then came ponds, water towers, larger ponds, and that pagoda. Arthur had quite the vision and the passion. Today we're in a garden that Bill Dohm and Patty Cooper own, and we're about to be led through beautiful plants and pathways in a wonderful tour led by Bill.

- [Bill] Welcome to the garden.

- Thank you.

- We've owned the garden since 1986, Patty Cooper and myself. And we're approaching some trees.

- And very mature shrubs and all types of things in here, but you said tree.

- Yep. A Chinese pistache planted by Arthur. It's a state champion. It has very pretty orange leaves.

- [Annette] I must say you've done a great job at nurturing specimens that were here and you've added so many new varieties. I understand you had historic photographs from the gardens grandest time in the late 1920s to guide you. And you and Patty have repaired or recreated so much of the structural features. You know Bill, this reminds me of a movie scene, I feel like I'm walking down through time. Tell me about the pergola and what the rebuild.

- Well these were rebuilt based on a photograph we had of the arbors. We're very lucky to have photos from the family. And we're approaching the pagoda which we'll see in a moment, but right now we have some hydrangeas which are blooming and bananas that are growing, starting their season.

- [Annette] And that I have to point out is incredi-ball.

- [Bill] They are incredi-balls.

- [Annette] And those bananas stay there year round?

- [Bill] They are year round, they're a hearty banana that we got from UT Gardens.

- [Annette] Bill I want to tell you that I appreciate so much what you and Patty have done here. It's not often when someone purchases a property they wanna go back and restore it to the original intent, and you have done that, along with you're having to do some repairs. But you've gone back to the foundation and the footings.

- [Bill] We're wanting to have a layer with lower ferns, the hydrangeas, the arborvitaes behind that to separate the pond area from the rest of the garden.

- [Annette] Right. And you know, I know that, because you told me previously, that we're actually walking in what was a goldfish pond.

- [Bill] This was goldfish pond.

- Yes, and you know, you've appointed it well with wonderful containers, and made it interesting. I really do like the different surface colors, the textures, the varying heights, you've got vertical lines going. And who could escape that beautiful rock wall back there, the original owner and his eye. In reading about this gardens history, it was in 1930 that a series of misfortunes occurred that caused this garden to decline. The Great Depression came, so Arthur could no longer employ his full time gardener Charlie Davis. Then in 1937 a tornado came and took out 19 trees and did a lot of damage to the rock foundation, and caused leaks in the pond. Finally Arthur passed away in 1946, leaving no one to devote the same time and attention to the gardens. And we're approaching another structure that you have taken care of reconstructing.

- This is the pagoda. It was built in 1926. There's a cistern inside, there's a pond surrounding the pagoda, and we have, this is probably the predominant feature in the entire garden.

- Right, it's seen from the streets actually too. So it was in pretty bad repair?

- [Bill] It was in very bad repair. The structure was collapsing, these outriggers were collapsing at the time we had to repair that.

- Now this is sort of like a little fairy land down here. And the usage of some rock over here, that you've made benches out of, you said those were stepping stones?

- [Bill] Those were originally stepping stones, were in the pond area. And we have a couple of lanterns that are original to the garden.

- [Annette] Those are beautiful, and they have age on them, and they just get better don't they?

- [Bill] Mhm.

- [Annette] And the height of them is good too. And then well, rock is one of my favorite subjects, and my eye was led to this camel over here.

- [Bill] It does look like a camel if you imagine that.

- [Annette] And I'm interested too in talking about the way they made their concrete. And where do you think that all of these rocks came from?

- [Bill] One of the stories is the family, on Sunday afternoons would go drive to the Smoky Mountains Park, before it was a national park, and bring back a trunk load of rocks. We have lots of hens and chicks in the rock work.

- [Annette] I see that. And those come back every year don't they?

- [Bill] They come back every year.

- [Annette] And then that plant.

- [Bill] Euphorbia.

- [Annette] Euphorbia that's right.

- [Bill] The hens and chicks like a hot dry place like that.

- [Annette] Yes. Well as we talk about hot let's go to the shade.

- [Bill] Sure.

- Bill, looking out over that hillside landscape, it's a botanical wonderland, with the colors and the shading, and the textures, it's just magnificent. You know Bill, the location that we have to deal with in this site, it's well sited for gardens, 'cause you're in the southern exposure, and but it's also on a hillside, and with this slope, you're allowed to see things had it been on flat ground you would never know they were there would you.

- It's much more interesting on a slope.

- Absolutely, it does create that depth that many people can't achieve without this. Well, some of the plants that you have located in here, for instance that beautiful coral bark maple. And I know in the fall, when it turns, and the sun, it's late afternoon, that is breathtaking. Is there another favorite plant that you have in here?

- [Bill] Well the large tree here is a China fir, and it's probably 100 years old. And we also have this line of boxwoods.

- [Annette] Does look really, that must be the sky pencil.

- [Bill] Mhm.

- I love those and the vertical-ness. But you know, being on a hillside it creates an issue doesn't it?

- Well they added a stream, there's a little stream that comes down to the pond.

- [Annette] A watershed. Yeah, and if there are torrential rains I'm sure it builds up and runs doesn't it.

- [Bill] Mhm it does.

- [Annette] Yes, well, let's move on. But first of all this arch over here.

- [Bill] That arch has been the site of several weddings over the years.

- [Annette] And that's original?

- [Bill] That was original.

- [Annette] Wow. What do you call that little thing at the top.

- [Bill] A keystone.

- Keystone, yes, that's just beautiful. And look how high that side is so that when you look through it, that beautiful structure back there.

- Arthur had a terrific design for the overall shape of the garden.

- That's a metal structure isn't it?

- That is a plant support there with clematis growing on it.

- [Annette] Wow.

- [Bill] Beyond the arch.

- You know if you just took that one little segment right there, there's a garden.

- Mhm.

- So many gardens within the big garden.

- Right.

- Yes. Well let's travel on. Bill we've kind of reached the top of this beautiful hillside, and this wonderful display of this wonderful hydrangea lady in red. And you know, I was just standing here waiting and thinking about how beautiful it is that these deciduous, and then all of this lower foliage goes away in the fall, and this turns pretty, but then you're exposed to all the wonderful evergreens, the needle evergreens, everything. It's just a wonderful background for everything isn't it?

- Mhm.

- Yeah, and then knowing that this was a home property and they had to have water, this is one of their water towers.

- They have two water towers here. This was built about 1919. And they had a system of irrigation from here down to the house and the pond in the front.

- [Annette] Wow, gravity took it down didn't it?

- [Bill] Mhm.

- [Annette] Wow that is amazing ingenuity and engineering isn't it? Do you think he did all that himself?

- [Bill] I would love to know how he came up with the design.

- [Annette] Fascinating just to think about, and at such an early time. But you know, they say nothing's new under the sun.

- [Bill] Well this was part of the, this was country back then, this was clearly not in the city.

- [Annette] And we're sort of in the foothills aren't we? To the mountains.

- These are three ponds that were built starting in 1919 by Charlie Davis that worked for Arthur Savage. Next to the water tower which we looked at just a moment ago. And these quickly developed cracks, and after they developed cracks, Arthur began the project in the front of the garden, the larger pond, with the pagoda we looked at earlier.

- [Annette] And it's interesting the stops that they put in there, didn't they? What do you think--

- [Bill] I think those were, those were planters, inside they had planters inside of each of the three ponds.

- [Annette] Right, like in the goldfish pond.

- [Bill] Right.

- [Annette] And you know I think it does, it has something to do with water flow too you think.

- [Bill] It made it more interesting to have plants in the water.

- [Annette] It's amazing to be up here on top of the world.

- [Bill] Yeah, yeah.

- [Annette] Of note is that there are 150 youth who attend Garden Montessori School just next door to this. And Bill, you and Patty founded that in 1994. These students use this private garden as part of the curriculum learning about nature. Wow Bill, I feel like I'm going into a very special place.

- Well this is the greenhouse. It was built by the Savages in 1926. The front corner of the house.

- Wow, and you know, a person with garden interests, what a way to begin all of that and understand that there are plants that go back to them.

- [Bill] We were lucky there was a jade plant that was left here by the Savage family, and some begonias, a few other plants that the family left.

- [Annette] And you know that's the great thing about plants, when we can pass them on, there's nothing that can take away from the charm of saying, well this came from Mr. Savage garden.

- [Bill] Right, it's very special.

- [Annette] There's just, nothing can replace that, well that's the connection that plants people have isn't it?

- [Bill] Right.

- [Annette] Wow.

- [Bill] We've been lucky over the years to have the help of Eric Fortenberry, Terumi Watson, William Griter, my son Jacob, Eric's nephew Jackson, and it's because of a effort of a lot of people that the garden has gotten to the condition and shape that it's in.

- [Annette] Well I commend them. And you Bill, and Patty, for the painstaking work you've done to restore and rejuvenate this historic treasure. Arthur would be proud.

- [Narrator] For inspiring garden tours, growing tips, and garden projects, visit our website at volunteergardener.org or on YouTube at the Volunteer Gardener channel, and like us on Facebook.