Rainbow ADVENTURE

Rainbow Roses
(1)

Introduction

I was on my weekly shopping constitutional when I spotted several pots of gaily colored flowers not normally found in nature.  I was immediately overcome with an irresistible urge, so I quickly went to use the bathroom, and then decided I needed to make some pretty plants myself, and what’s prettier than a rainbow?

Many retailers have taken advantage of the method vascular plants use to take up water and some nutrients termed transpiration.  This process, common to all vascular plants, is where evaporating water on the surface of the plant causes water (and some other nutrients or dyes if you add them) to be drawn up through the roots and the xylem of the plant, ultimately ending at the surface of the leaves and flowers (2).  The most popular flower plants that are colored with this method are chrysanthemums, carnations, hydrangeas, some species of orchid, and roses.
The ability to make colored flowers has been known for millennium, however in 2005 Dutch grower Peter van de Werken used a special combination of 7 dyes with roses to create the first Rainbow Rose (3).

Materials

Figure One:  So few things required! This one will be a breeze!

1) Budding white roses (I totally used an old-ass white rose from Cub, because it was only a couple of bucks as opposed to a 15 dollar bunch!  What difference could it make right?!)
2) Dye of some sort (I used food coloring because it was sitting on my spice rack!)
3) Some way to contain the dye while being able to insert the plant into it (I had many great ideas including glass vials from work, but I didn't want to worry about disinfecting them and who wants roses filled with unknown protein? My luck I’d probably create mutant roses that would take over the world… I've seen “Little Shop of Horrors” I know how that ends… (Sorry that thought kind of got away from me, I used zip-lock bags, because I bought them from Costco and now I’ll never ever run out!))
4) Sharp implements (Like scissors)

Methods

1)    Take rose and cut the stem into as many slits as colors you are going to use, I forgot I was making a rainbow and used four colors, because rainbows in my world are not so showy. 

Figure Two:  It took me about a thousand shots to actually get this in focus because I have ADD and therefore cannot FOCUS oh my goodness is that some dude walking his dog?! PS- I have been diagnosed as making up having ADD in order to get out of tricky situations. Please make a note of it. PPS- When writing figure notes they should probably only relate to the picture and not include PS's in them.

2) Put dye in each baggie/receptacle and insert stem portion into them.

Figure Three: Ohhhhhhhhhhh so pretty!  Maybe I should just decorate with bags of food coloring!  But then they would probably just dry out and be all crusty which would not be cute at all!

3)  I secured each bag with those plastic strip things people always use in TV shows to keep people restrained while they’re kidnapping/interrogating them.  The fact I have so many is not to insinuate I’m doing any aforementioned kidnapping or interrogating, but as an ex-boy scout I always try to be prepared…just in case.  Ok  I’m not saying I've thought that that situation would actually arise, but you never know...This train of thought brought to you by the “Supernatural” marathon I've been watching.

Figure Four:  Zip-ties used to secure each part of the stem into the bag, totally not to interrogate the rose.  Although I'm sure that would be a "thorny" situation (tee hee)

3)  Wait for about a week and BAM! You have Rainbow Roses...kinda

Figure Five.  OH MY GOD IT'S SO AMAZING IT BURNED THE CONES IN YOUR EYES OUT SO ALL YOU SEE IS WHITE WHERE YOU SHOULD SEE BEAUTIFUL COLORS! You'd better get yourself to a doctor ASAP!

Results and Discussion

Well the lesson I learned this week is that attempting to make rainbow roses using an older rose does not work very well. 

I was hoping for a result something like this:

What I got was more like this:

Lesson learned!  Making multicolored flowers was much more difficult than I thought, and in the hopes that it would look better I let it sit forever until it started disintegrating and all the petals fell off.  Some may call it being too stubborn to admit that maybe the experiment wasn't working, but I chose to call it determination.  May all your flowers be more rainbowey than mine!

Literature Cited:

1. http://cdn3.blogs.babble.com/being-pregnant/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/pFc4jkWyd4QXeRtdG.jpg
2.  Peter A. Raven, Ray F. Evert, Susan E. Eichhorn (1999). Biology of Plants. W.H. Freeman and Company. pp. 576–577.
3.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_rose