Rainbow Roses

summer_daze009

Looking through Ebay yesterday I came across Rainbow Rose seeds.



Although I know it is possible to grow roses from seed you cannot grow these rainbow roses. I thought it was photoshopped, but having done some research, apparently not. They are made by cutting the stems into four sections and putting each cut section into containers which have different coloured food colourings in them. The stem then draws up the liquid and dyes the petals.

My question is, has anybody tried this and if so how successful was it? I would love to try it but don’t want to go out and buy 4 bottles of food colourings if it wasn’t as easy as it sounds or didn’t turn out as pretty as the picture suggests.

Farway

Not tried, but I think Photoshop is the key here.

We used to add blue ink to vases of daffodils, which gave the daffs a blue tinted fringe but never turned the whole flower blue, and I suspect the same would be true with any other flower, tinged but not fully coloured and more apparent on paler flowers, like whites or yellow

Dustyevsky

My advice:buy a left-handed screwdriver instead.

summer_daze009

Farway said:

Not tried, but I think Photoshop is the key here.

You may or not be correct, but I got the info (not the photo) from a reputable site and just wondered if it was worth trying. I may have a go in the summer just to satisfy my curiosity

https://www.lovethegarden.com/uk-en/article/rainbow-roses-are-they-real

summer_daze009

Dustyevsky said:

My advice:buy a left-handed screwdriver instead.

I already have one of these in the shed along with a jar filled with spirit level bubbles...

Dustyevsky

Farway said:

Not tried, but I think Photoshop is the key here.

We used to add blue ink to vases of daffodils, which gave the daffs a blue tinted fringe but never turned the whole flower blue, and I suspect the same would be true with any other flower, tinged but not fully coloured and more apparent on paler flowers, like whites or yellow

I seem to remember doing this as a pupil too, but maybe modern dyes would give a better result?

My screwdriver comment was more about "Why would you do it?" but I'm an old fogey who finds it hard enough to grow bog-standard versions of plants well. Complexity isn't my thing nowadays.

It's a good thing someone is highlighting the impossibility of getting this result, or anything like it, from rose seed bought on the internet.

theoretica

I've seen rainbow roses in a shop - very impressive but maybe not quite as shiny as that image.  I understand the colour can be injected into the stem as an alternative method.

The blue orchids you see in supermarkets, and some of the mini rose plants in bloom are dyed too.

You can of course try it with only one colour - ink, dye, food colour - anything water soluble is worth trying.

This image looks like what caught my eye the first time I saw them: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-rainbow-roses-bouquet-in-a-florist-shop-143175316.html

twopenny

Indeed I was about 10 when a teacher showed us a snowdrop put in a bottle of ink.
I tried it with some flowers, the white took up colour the best of course.
So presumably you have to start with a white rose.
You could do a single colour for each rose and have a bouquet of unusual colours.

-taff

My sister and I bought a rose from a nursery in Italy last year which had variegated flowers of different colours. I can't remember exactly what it was called, something along the lines of Carnival, but it produced flowers that looked similar to this and in different colours. Might be worth looking for variegated roses.

Farway

-taff said:

My sister and I bought a rose from a nursery in Italy last year which had variegated flowers of different colours. I can't remember exactly what it was called, something along the lines of Carnival, but it produced flowers that looked similar to this and in different colours. Might be worth looking for variegated roses.

There was a spell mid 80s I think when garish multicoloured roses were all the rage, and Harry Wheatcroft was the top seller of them. Maybe search under that name? He did name one of the more garish ones after himself

-taff

After a quick google, that certainly looks like it. The plant we bought had three flowering buds on it, when they opened, one was an orange/red/peach, one was a blue/purple and the other was pink/white. All were different. Wish I'd bought one for me..