By: Prof. Shlomo Maital

We have just returned from a visit to Keukenhof, the amazing Dutch park 40 minutes south of Amsterdam, where visitors from all over the world flock to see springtime bursts of color – hyacinths, tulips, amaryllis, orchids and other flowers, in acres and acres of meticulously-arranged gardens. The Dutch are bonded to flowers through their souls – but also make a good living from them; flowers are sent to Amsterdam from all over the world, and are auctioned in an incredibly efficient Dutch-auction market, then flown to all parts of the world, all of this taking place within hours.

At Keukenhof, we saw an “innovation” – a multi-colored rose, known as the rainbowed rose. No, it’s not painted. It’s a real rose. It’s created by introducing colored water to the rose’s stem, but in a manner that the colors reach the petals at different places. The inventor, Peter van de Werken keeps the process a secret. A similar process is also done for flowers similar to Gerbera, creating a startling rainbow effect. This too is done by introducing colored water to the stem, in a secret layered fashion.

Nature, of course, has its own multicolored flowers, including red-and-yellow tulips, and brilliant red and white orchids. One wonders if man’s innovation of ‘rainbow’ flowers really does improve on nature. If nature found some advantage in rainbow flowers, nature would have already invented them.

*This article was initially published in Prof. Shlomo Maital’s Innovation Blog.