I deal with this all the time in Plumeria growing circles. 'Why is my flower not as orange as the picture?' - well because you live in Oregon and the picture was taken in Thailand.... the climates are 'just slightly' different.... and at different times of the year we can have vast differences too. I'll save this article and point people to it the next time they wonder what happened!
Thanks for posting.

Hi Hetty, great to hear from you! Glad you enjoyed the article. It was a good exercise for me to think about what the reasons might be for my frustration with plants that flowered a different color than I expected. And thanks for adding yet another factor (same plant growing in different parts of the world) that contributes to color discrepancies.

A fun and informative article, Larry, makes us think before we plant. Thank you.

You forgot about those of us who look at things through rose colored glasses, however.
That always makes a difference you know.

great read Larry.. thanks!!

Thanks for the compliments, Sharon and Allison.

Sharon, I see that you're finally willing to divulge the source of your rosy outlook.

Great article. I always laugh when a customer asks for purple petunias since 9 times out of 10 they want "Blue Petunias", which to our eyes is dark purple and the "Purple Petunia" is actually a Magenta colour.

Last year I bought the Black Velvet petunia. Very different and really looked like black velvet. One hot day we had a short down-pour which cooled things off very quickly. All the open flowers of the Black Velvet turned a wine colour. I had to wait for new blooms to see the black velvet colour again.

I put Epsom Salts around all my roses once a month throughout the growing season. It is amazing how strong the colours become in comparison to what my gardening pals say about their same roses. The cool night temps do play a factor and the colours are always stronger with cool temps. This is Folklore Rose

Onewish1 said:great read Larry.. thanks!!

Thanks for the compliment, Joanne, and for your perspective. And for the additional conditions that can affect flower color. I'm going to try Epsom salts on our roses this year!

Thanks for your enthusiastic concurrence, Marilyn!

What a gorgeous rose photo, Joanne!

Interesting article, Larry! Thanks for further educating us!

Thanks, Brenda!

Last year, I had the ugliest planters!
It was because I went by the catalogue descriptions of the plant colours.
A lime bicolour petunia turned out to be magenta with odd blotches of yellow green.
Another petunia described as white with salmon, turned out to be salmon red with flecks of white.
Blue flowers often turn out to be mauve or purple, and the word salmon means different things to different people.

Thanks for a great article!

Fun article Larry! Thank you!

Thanks for sharing your experience with blossom colors, Caroline.

And thanks, Caroline and Vicki for the compliment. I'm glad you both enjoyed the article.

Great article Larry! It's very interesting how the effect of different climates and growing conditions etc. etc. can have on flower color! I relate to your disappointment with the Rosa Knockout 'Sunny' ... first opening a beautiful deep yellow ... but very quickly fading to a pale, bland cream color. The photo's below are not photoshopped (I don't know how to do that) and I love the color when it first opens but it fades to something not so pretty (my opinion):




By the way ... I laughed out loud when I got to the very bottom of your article and saw that color chart ... it certainly is true in my husbands case! Everything in the peach, salmon, tangerine color range is all ORANGE to him ... same for everything in the maroon, brick, etc. range ... all RED in his eyes.

Thanks for your comments, Lin. I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one who is disappointed in Sunny Knockout. I'm also glad that your husband validated my claim about male color perception!

I agree re: Sunny knockout. I gave away 2 and can't find a taker for the 3rd. Larry - Thanks for all your work on this informative article.

Great article. My sister and I regularly share plants and often note differences in color and/or size. We are on opposite sides of a mountain range with a significant difference in both weather and soil composition. Sometimes they will seem like totally different plants, other times just kissin cousins. Always a fun observation.