Have you heard Summer shout?"Red!", she hollers as she paints Mumbai and my garden in every hue of that colour .
A fiery, incandescent, scorching, tropical red. Blazing hot, in-your-face loud. Bristling, boiling, vibrant, thrumming, oh-so-sensuous red.
Starry days are made of this. Fiery ixoras blaze their way to the spotlight in the summer garden. Burning, searing, fulminating."Hey, the Sun is a star too", they tease.
Summer's own mascot, the Gul mohur, holds sway now. Gaunt, barren canopy-tops are now an explosion of molten hues igniting the clear Summer sky.
A hint of green feathers its way but Gul mohur leaves in Summer are at best a walk-on role. Late to appear and hardly noticed. They'll have to wait their turn till the scarlet and crimson explosions burns itself out.
Hardly noticed, like this poor butterfly. Who would dare the glare of the sun to follow her antics now? Not me. My verandah is my sanctuary now.
The Jatropha is in its element now, though. The glaring, exploding, melting summer day is no dampener to its ever-cheery disposition.
Lobster claws or fire-sticks? I say blazing torch! Heliconias light up the furthest corners of my garden in a flash of impudent arrogance.Burning their way to grab all attention from under a jungle of foliage.
Foliage? Does anyone actually notice any when the heliconia is fire-bright?
Glowing embers wrapped in a sheath of ice, the Bleeding Heart Vine masters the fine art of capturing a free-spirit. Have you ever seen a red more eye-catching?But that's the name of the game. Summer's here to play, come who may.
And, until cooler days swing around, find a cool, shaded spot to watch the world go by.
(Did you notice I've changed the look of my blog a bit? Nothing drastic, just the typeface and colours. It looks fine on Internet Explorer but I found that it doesn't look so good in Google Chrome. How does it look on your screen? Is the text clear and easy to read? Please let me know, okay? )
Update : I've reverted back to the earlier Georgia typeface till I can figure out what is going wrong. If anyone has a clue, please let me know? I really liked the look of the Josefin Sans typeface (at least, how it looked on IE!)
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Brilliant reds! What a great post. I can tell it's rather hot over there these days.
ReplyDeleteI had noticed you've changed the look of your blog, and it looks just fine on Firefox. Very easy to read.
It is excruciatingly sweltering hot here now, Bernie! I'm just counting off the days to the start of the monsoons in June.
ReplyDeleteOh, thanks for the feedback! That's a relief.
I miss the Gulmohar lined streets....
ReplyDeleteGreat post and I love your descriptions.
ReplyDeleteIt is getting hotter and more humid with each day here in s.e. FL USA. I'll be hanging out more indoors in the air-conditioning as we enter into summer.
Your blog looks fine with me too and I have Firefox.
Have a great week ~ FlowerLady
Shri, the gul mohur show just keeps building up momentum. In my opinion, it is one of the saving graces of Summer!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Flower Lady :)
ReplyDeleteYou and me both! I think we share the same climate. I love the flowers of summer but I just can't stand the heat and humidity.
Thanks for letting me know about my blog. It looks like readers using IE and Firefox don't have a problem viewing this. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that its okay for the others too.
Very pretty! It's always nice to take a break from my day and taking a stroll through your garden- way over there! Big beautiful world we live in.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Amy! Feel free to walk around my garden anytime you want a break :)
DeleteI love it that I can enjoy so many gardens via blog-dom.
Of course your blazing red flowers outshine the text, but it is fine on Google Chrome. I think it has a clean elegant look!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you liked the pics, Becky!
DeleteActually, there've been some conflicting reports on how the text appears on Google Chrome. It looks fine to you and some of my other friends who use it. But to me and Lisa (see below) it looks splotchy and faded in parts. I wonder if it is some setting problem?
Incidentally, I've been trying to comment on your blog for some time now, Becky but I keep getting an internal error message.
yes...this looks pretty bad (the font is washed out and sort of splotchy) on chrome..hard to read. :(
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you're back to posting. (she says tapping her foot...)
That's exactly what I'm seeing too, Lisa. Apparently some of the others using Chrome don't have a problem with it. Weird!
DeleteBy the way, was my last post difficult to read on Chrome too when it was just published? That was done before I changed the look of the blog. I'm just wondering if its a problem with only this typeface (since its a slim one).
LOL! I've been scrambling a bit, Lisa. That's why the posts are delayed so much. Hopefully things will go back to normal soon (fingers crossed!)
I'm on Google chrome and it is okay. Just that the text appears a bit too fine, a bolder text would be a wee bit more convenient. Love your post and photographs as always.
ReplyDeleteLike you I can't wait for the rains, but I'm not looking forward to Mumbai's pot holed roads either. Well, guess we can't have everything.
Thanks, Lubna. I did wonder about the typeface since my earlier one was Georgia. Switching to a sans-serif one took a bit of adjusting mentally but I thought a change might shake things up a bit :)
DeleteGoogle Chrome has been going haywire with the text. The last time I checked the text on this post was bold and squat while that in the earlier posts looked long and half-faded in parts. I wish they'd fix this!
The pot-holes I can deal with, not the heat and humidity. I'm longing for the monsoons... sigh!
Thanks for the feedback, Prabha!
ReplyDeleteThe reds are overwhelming now, aren't they? I love it! :)
This seriously weird! The text looks okay on Chrome to some of the readers but in my screen and that of Lisa, it looks splotchy and faded in parts. As if the letter was fading away.
ReplyDeleteTo add to it, Blogger has come up with the new embedded reply feature. It's lovely! Except it doesn't seem to work on IE in my computer. It works on Google Chrome for me, though (as you can see in my replies above).
Teething problems, Blogger? Okay, we all go through it at some time and I hope they fix it soon. But I hope they'll hurry!!!
Lookin' good, Sunita ... lovely post!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joey! :)
DeleteI think I've found a fix for this! According to Google Chrome's help center, you can select "Settings", go to "Show Advanced Settings" and in "Web Content" section go to "Font Size" to adjust as necessary. Maybe that'll make a difference!
ReplyDeleteNice narration for the fiery red images. You make me hot under the collar with this talk of early summer heat :P.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Stiletto :)
ReplyDeleteActually, it isn't early summer for us here in India. We're slam-bang in the middle of it! Our Summer is from mid-March (late-March if we're lucky) to the first weeks of June when the south-west monsoons arrive, hopefully on time.
Imagine, I wanted to escape the heat in Malaysia and decided to visit East America and also my friend and relatives in Toronto. Due to some unavoidable delay, we ended up making the trip late May till June. I hope to get some reprieve from the heat there as well. looks like you have to really drench your plants. I hope mine won't be scorched and wilted from neglect :(
ReplyDeleteOh, lucky you, Stiletto. I'd love to get away to some place cooler right now.
DeleteYes, my plants really love a good soak now.The heliconia leaves get so scorched in the blistering hot sun. Luckily our clay soil actually helps out now (I never thought I'd say that!) by helping to retain moisture. Thank goodness for small mercies :)
Have fun, enjoy your holiday, Stiletto.
Wow, those lobster claws are amazing, if not a little scary...lol!! What a gorgeous tropical part of the world you live in...beautiful!! Great post, I'm new here and excited to follow, found you through Stiletto's blog. Cheers Julia
ReplyDeleteHi Julia! I'm so glad you found your way here :)
DeleteYes, my garden is tropical to the hilt, but guess what? I'd kill to be able to grow cool-growing temperate plants!:D
Those lobster claws are really something else, aren't they? You're right, they can look intimidating! But they're so colourful that I forgive them ;D
I love to go through your blog. its been such a long time since I did my routine blog hopping. getting back to blogging after a long hiatus and reacquainting with my old haunts :-) How have u been?
DeleteOH, I love your blog.. very inspiring. I have a reasonable sized garden and backyard. but just not getting the time and energy to start the work. You will see me more often again.
hi...
ReplyDeleteI had been going through your "green blogs" for quite some time now. I have to say i am very deeply inspired with your work. You helped me realize that even a "cowpea" flower is in itself most amazing flower in size \ color & same is the case with gul - mohar. :)
These days when i look at a weed \insect \snail\ butterfly (in my kitchen garden) , i would think on how would be your take on them :). So i treat them like guests :P
Thanks for putting across such wonderful posts.
PKK
Thank you, PKK. Sorry about the delay in replying to you. I dont know how it happened but I think I must have had some problem with publishing your comment.
DeleteIf my posts have made you look at even weeds differently, I'm very happy. Sometimes we forget that weeds are just unappreciated flowers :D
Thank you very much for your kind words.
Great blog! Every flower is fighting to be noticed and pollinated, so what better colour to be than bright red? Everything about your blog looks great! :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you, gaianursery :)
ReplyDeleteRed is such an attention-grabber, isn't it? No wonder we grow so much of the red-blooming plants.
I'm glad you enjoyed this post :)
ReplyDeleteRed flowers are very attractive. A garden blooming with red flowers looks wonderful! I love it! The flowers in this post are so adorable and eye catching! Enjoyed this post!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Cherry Tree. So glad you enjoyed this post.
ReplyDelete