Dyeing Flowers

A long time ago, I remember hearing about placing white flowers in a vase of colored water to color the flowers. Recently, I started coming across posts about this same activity, and I thought I'd give it a try. I placed some white carnations in a vase filled with water tinted blue with food coloring. From what I read, they should have started changing to blue within a few hours, but mine didn't. About 12 hours later I noticed a little blue forming along the edges of the petals. Another 12 hours and the buds were starting to get a slight blue tint. They didn't change much past this. I waited three days total before deciding they must be as blue as they were going to get. I was a little disappointed that they didn't absorb more color, but the blue edges on the petals were pretty cool. A friend of mine said buttercups work well, too. She also said that her daughter likes to split a flower stem, put one half of the stem in one color and the other half in another color, and then watch the flower turn two different colors. I'll have to try that one! However you do it or whatever the results, I think this is a great way to teach about how plants soak up the water and nutrients in the soil to help them grow!

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