Kristin, first off, I thought the colors in this picture were pretty good. If anything, the red might be a little desaturated. I've learned in the last couple of years as I've started taking flower images that there is much more variance in colors than I had ever realized, so I don't know what color you expected this red to be. I thought you did a great job of bringing out the yellow of the pollen.

I copied your picture into Photoshop and looked at the histogram. It was way off the chart in both directions. If this was a valid way of looking at this, it suggests two things to me:
-- the picture is overexposed, so colors will appear desaturated (that wasn't obvious to me just looking at your post. I thought the exposure was pretty typical for a bright, sunlit day.)
-- the scene had too wide of an exposure range for the camera to capture all the colors and tones accurately (typical for bright, sunlit scenes).

So my first recommendation on this would be to check your histogram while you are taking the picture. If it is off the right side, you are overexposed and you use the exposure compensation (if you are in any automatic mode) to bring it down. That would make the reds (and greens) richer but lose detail in the background shadows.

To deal with the exposure range, I tend to use a polarizer rain or shine, and especially anytime when I want good color. It can reduce highlights (with corresponding reduction in the image's overall exposure range) on reflected surfaces like flowers so the true colors show through better.

If you've captured this as a RAW image, the Adobe Camera Raw component of your PSE has adjustments for both exposure and for "recovery" that might help pull some of the color out.

There are a lot of other things that could be brought up, but this seems to be the most specific to this image. #10020455

First of all, your question about shooting red is a very good one. It seems that modern digital cameras tend to capture red and yellows more intensely than other colors. This is just the way they work and in order to correct for it. In most cases you have to do it in post processing. In order to do this you just need to desaturate those channels slightly. You can also use the darken slider in the channels adjustment tool to good effect.

Unless the light is right using a polarizing filter is almost the same as using a neutral density filter. Polarizing filters have their place and you have to look for the light coming in from a 90° angle or close to it in order for them to have a positive effect. Other than that, all you generally do is reduce your shooting speed or f-stop. I am not saying you shouldn't try polarizing filter, but try it, and don't put it on your camera all the time. In many cases you will lose more than you will gain.

In this shot, while it is just slightly overexposed and would be a lot easier to get back as a raw image, you can still use the recovery slider to bring it back if you edit your JPEG and raw. I see both the yellow and red channels being slightly oversaturated and a reduction in these in Photoshop will also help. An 8 x 10 crop taking everything off the left would also help with the comp on this one.

So to sum up: I think this is oversaturated rather than under saturated. I think trying a polarizing filter is a good idea but shouldn't be overdone. Almost everything as a wider exposure range than a camera will capture, so that's not a real issue. To capture reds you almost always have to desaturate them in postprocessing. Do check your histogram and be prepared to adjust your exposure in any situation.
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He has also often presented opening the JPG file in ACR in order to use the recovery slider. If you are ready to start using ACR, that will help, too. (I've started incorporating that into my own workflow on those few occasions where I am starting with a JPG file.)

So if his saturation adjustments deal with the "off the ends" of the histogram, good! #10021765

On the positive, I like how the lines of the leaves continue as shadows on the flower! #10023212

I believe you have gotten some great advise shooting using your histogram is really helpful. when I first started shooting raw I set my camera on raw and jeg more for a comfort than anything else but I quickly could see the difference by seeing them side by side. I don't think it will take you long now that you have PSE and you can see how much you can edit in raw. #10023439