Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Rainbow of Petals

Last week I wrote about my garden surprise -- the gladiolus that sprang up from nowhere. Okay, I had planted the bulbs, but I forgot, so I was surprised by them. I was alerted by the peachy, rosy color of the first gladiolus that bloomed.
Nothing else in my garden is that color.
But I didn't want you to think that gladiolus only come in that color. We planted bulbs randomly and these are the colors we have seen so far.

White, of course. Pure, but slightly predictable in a flower.


The palest pink tipped with brighter pinks at the edges, and, wait? What's that? Yellow in the center? Who does your decorating, gladiolus, because that looks phenomenal.


This one looked intensely purple before opening and then once opened, released its purple to the wind and was satisfied to be lavender tinged.


The red is so dark and rich. It made me want to plan a December wedding with girls in green taffeta dresses and armloads of red velvety gladiolus.


And then I found these. Yellow, no shrinking yellow, but a hello-I'm-here yellow with reddish orange in the center. And the blooms opened all along the stem at the same time, flashly, like a can-can girl at the Moulin Rouge.
Oh, gladiolus, you flirts. You promised color and drama, and you delivered.

8 comments:

judi said...

these pictures and clever words have me reconsidering the virtues of gladiolus.

"... released its purple to the wind..." love that!

Lucia said...

I love Gladiolas, they were my favourite summer flower.

Sheila said...

very pretty, now I'm wanting to go take some pictures of my gladiolas.

Stephanie said...

Here I go again. Each time you write about one of your garden plants, I feel compelled to go out and purchase the same for our yard.

Those colors are just beautiful!

aguja said...

Amazing! I have had gladioli appearing from nowhere. They are obviously seasoned travellers!
Thank you for visiting my blog.

Jenny Woolf said...

I love to see gladioli in the garden. I always forget to stake mine though.

oddFrogg said...

Beautiful pictures. Seeing them put me in mind of my mother who had an amazing touch with flowers. Her glads were stellar. As are yours.

BFF said...

The ruffles, the colors and the overall effect reminds me of flamenco dancers. Slightly exotic and eye catchingly beautiful

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