What colours are catching your eye?

European spindle - an autumn jewel featuring a great colour combo

I was looking back at photos from last autumn and was reminded of a satisfying colour palette moment. As I was admiring the bright pink and orange of the spindle plants along the river, I looked down and realised they matched my outfit almost perfectly. “Outfit” seems a bit too complimentary for the hot pink t-shirt I’d chucked on over the leggings I wear in the hope they’ll trick myself into doing yoga, Noushi’s (rather manky) pink lead and my scruffy 90s orange Puffa… but I’d accidentally curated a rather lovely, spindley, colour palette.

European spindles (Latin name: Euonymus europaeus) have pink fruit and the orange bits that hang down are the seeds. I must admit that I’ve been thinking these are flowers the whole time, but now I look at them they are clearly fruit! The actual flowers, which I have never noticed, are four-petalled and white - much more inconspicuous than the jewel-toned fruits that never fail to catch my eye. That colour combo really pops at this time of year - there’s nothing else like it!

Spindles produce hard, dense timber which in the past was used to make - you guessed it - SPINDLES (for spinning wool, not the bannister kind) as well as lots of other spindley things, like toothpicks, skewers and knitting needles. According to Woodland Trusts, “The fruits were baked and powdered, and used to treat head lice or mange in cattle”. I didn’t even know cows could get head lice (ba dum tss 🥁)!

Anyway, now we’ve got past my terrible jokes, I’ll tell you that one of the main uses for spindle these days is to make charcoal for artists. I have a lovely book called The Organic Artist on my shelf, which includes a section on making ‘Simple Charcoal’. In the book, the excellently named Nick Neddo suggests making charcoal from grape vine or willow rods, I looked at this and thought: “Ooh, maybe I’ll make some charcoal from my grape vine at the allotment”, before I remembered that I have a whole pack of (store-bought) charcoal already, which I have used a maximum of one time. Charcoal is just so messy isn’t it? I can’t be trusted not to turn everything around me charcoal black and come out looking like a chimney sweep. The next section in the book does, conveniently, talk you through how to make charcoal holders from blackberry sticks though… and I certainly have an abundance of blackberry bushes at the allotment. Perhaps I’ll make a holder for my underused charcoal stash and become a world-renowned charcoal artist. More likely though, I’ll just put the book back on the shelf and ignore the charcoal until this time next year.

Right, enough about my underused art supplies… this week I’m encouraging you to go out and see what colours catch your eye. It’s really starting to feel autumnal here in Kent and there are lots of great colour combos to admire at the moment. Perhaps I’ll share some more about that next week. Let me know if you want me to start a chat thread for your natural colour combo findings - I’d love to see them!

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Something I enjoyed…

I absolutely loved this conversation between Blindboy and Sean Ronanye, an Ornithologist who has made it his mission to record every bird species to be found in Ireland. Give it a listen!

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