Glad Summer Sunsets

It's only the fifth of August, but I can feel fall sneaking up on me. The weather is odd. Very warm but not unbearably hot. Humid mornings, breezy afternoons. Thunder storms just over the mountains and the sun setting a little bit earlier every day. School starts in a few short weeks and regardless of what the calendar says, for many, myself included, the first day of school is the first day of fall. So before summer slips away much further, taking this particular bloom with it, I must get my Flower of the Month post published.

The Gladiolus, August's Birth Flower, has burst into bloom with the colors of summer sunsets. Their clean, tropical hues come directly from the warmest side of the rainbow-- red, fuchsia, orange, hot pink, chrome yellow. At the end of their own season in the garden, flamboyant Glads represent perfectly these bright, sultry days of late summer. Come September, summer and the Gladiolus will both be gone.

Some, perhaps not ever ready to say goodbye to summer, choose to keep the season all year 'round by bringing the warm, happy exuberance of the Gladiolus into their homes.

Both images above via "An Indian Summer"

via "Style Redux"

Angie Hranowsky

Fiona Newell Weeks

Angie Hranowsky

Kathryn M. Ireland

Amanda Nisbet

Gary McBournie

via "Style Redux"

via "Marie Claire Maison"

Stephen Shubel

I couldn't resist including this shot of a Stockholm apartment, above, designed by Swedish architects Tham & Videgard Hansson. Found on the blog Dezeen, it literally defies description. Click on the photo to read the post and see the rest of this remarkable space. Trust me, you don't want to miss it and you might not know what to make of it!

And finally, the art at the top of this post is a detail of this digital art print called "Gladiola Fiesta" by Gayle Lee, available here. I love how the bright hues are muted, and the shapes a bit blurred; blending and fading into each other like the colors and memories of a summer almost past.