Science Project #2: Can Flowers Change Colors?

I remember buying green flowers for St. Patrick's Day at school when I was a teenager.  (I went to a Catholic school, so of course we celebrated St. Patrick's Day by wearing green carnations and going to church.)  I believe it was my dad who told me that they colored the carnations with green food coloring in the water.  So, since my kids can't buy green carnations from a school (if they would even sell them anymore, they probably don't) I decided to turn this into a science experiment for March.

Supplies:

• white carnations
• knife (if needed)
• glasses (mugs work just as well if your children have broken all of your glasses)
• assorted food coloring

First, cut the flowers if needed.  Your probably will, I have no idea who you would even buy short stemmed carnations from.

Then, fill the glasses/mugs up about half way with some water, and have your kids put in about 3-5 drops of food coloring.  Enough to get a strong color.  Then add the flowers, we put two in each cup (our colors were purple, neon pink, green, yellow, and neon yellow that looks like neon green but honestly it isn't).

Now it'll take a few days to fully happen but your flowers will start to change color.  The green started after a couple of hours.

Green, yellow, and neon green did beautiful.

After a coupe of days, and doubling the food coloring twice purple and neon pink only tinted at the edges.  Maybe the colors were too strong/deep to fully color the flowers?  We have no idea.

In the end we gave up on the purple and neon pink and just put the flowers in a mug on the table.  They lasted about a week, long after the bouquet said it would on the packaging.

A close up.