Those rocks may have had some color at one point, but it's not obvious that they did/didn't. At first glance, actually even now, this doesn't seem like a desaturated photo at all. JMO of course. :) Good luck!
are people hammering you because you did everything in real life instead of desat in processing? A nice attempt. I'll give you 2 bonus points just because I bet you are having a bad day. 7
I like this shot a lot. IMO would have left out the dried leaves of petals however. Would have maybe focused the attention more on the growth. Nice work non the less.