[paul.fr]

If i have a white flowering plant and inject it with, say red food dye. Will the petals turn red? If they will, will it just last until the dye has been used up, or will it be permanent?

Also, assuming the answer to the above is yes. If i have another plant that has red petals and i inject some green food dye, will it have blue petals?

[WylieE]

Hi Paul,
 It is easier than that, you can just soak the stem of a white flower in the dye and it will stain the petals.  It would probably be hard to get red, since the white will dampen it down a bit, but you can certainly get a dark pink.
Here are the instructions:
http://lancaster.unl.edu/hort/youth/Carnations.shtml

Depending on how long the flower lives it may be permanent.  The dye that you would use in this experiment won't get used by the plant, but it will get washed out eventually, so if you soak the stem in water you will see it become fainter (although some color will probably remain the whole time your flower lives).

Colleen 

[Karen W.]

we used to pick Trillum and add color to a glass and color whole bouquets with them they were pretty!

[WylieE]

I love Trillium, they are so beautiful!  Do you ever see the red ones?

[Karen W.]

yep we have the white and red here in the woods next to my house.

[WylieE]

I think I'm going to try to come and visit you next spring. []

[Karen W.]

LOL you would like trilliums but you would have to blaze some new trails as the briars are covering the bank of the woods! LOL! They are lovely.. I love them too. There used to be bluebells down there to, I wonder if you could add red food coloring to them to achieve a purple color, although I loved the blue!

[paul.fr]

Excellent, thank you Colleen

[Karen W.]

Hi Paul,
 It is easier than that, you can just soak the stem of a white flower in the dye and it will stain the petals.  It would probably be hard to get red, since the white will dampen it down a bit, but you can certainly get a dark pink.
Here are the instructions:
http://lancaster.unl.edu/hort/youth/Carnations.shtml

Depending on how long the flower lives it may be permanent.  The dye that you would use in this experiment won't get used by the plant, but it will get washed out eventually, so if you soak the stem in water you will see it become fainter (although some color will probably remain the whole time your flower lives).

Colleen 

The only thing I have ever done differently is left the flower in the dye water, It retained its lovely color and we had some pretty red results perhaps because of longer exposure, I always added fresh water as the water went down, but never dumped out the colored water. It has been years ago, so I can't remember how long they lasted or anything but as a child it was quite fun!