Undoubtedly you have seen dyed or tinted sunflowers. Usually they are tinted bright red as in the image below.
Tinted and natural sunflower for sale.
Like many flower species, cut sunflower will absorb colorants through its stems when the colorants are added to the water in which the stems are placed. This process should be done in a bucket in a place where you will not worry about a few errant drips or spills.
While almost all sunflowers will absorb the colorant, you will have to experiment to discover your own technique. Many varieties absorb differently than others and your results can vary from variety to variety.
Many professional growers who offer tinted sunflowers use colorants provided by Robert Koch Industries of Bennett, Colorado:
If you find that you are not interested in large scale tinting of sunflower such as described by Robert Koch Industries, you can still experiment using common food dyes found in the bakery department of your local grocery store.
You should consider the natural color of the sunflower petal when you tint. The varieties at SunflowerSelections.com offer a lot of possibilities.
Starburst Lemon Eclair and Starburst Aura tinted various colors.
The closer to white the natural petal color of the sunflower, the truer will be the color of the colorant in the flower petal when it is tinted. Expect the nearly white petals of Moonshadow and Jade to look different than ProCut Yellow Lite and ProCut Orange when tinted with the same colorant. At SunflowerSelections.com we have tried many of the colorants from Robert Koch Industries just for fun. Our Starburst Lemon Eclair and Starburst Aura gave interesting results producing semi-double petals colored on the edges and tips as shown in the image above.
Have fun being creative with your sunflowers from SunflowerSelections.com
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