Month: June 2007

Name that flower

Here’s a blossom that I saw for the first time last night. Any guesses? If I was GardenRant, I’d have swag to give away to the first person with the right ID. But then I’d also have to be sure that I knew the genus/species/cultivar. This one I only know to genus.

It’s a little smaller than a golf ball, and I had to bend it up to shoot it. (The face naturally points straight down to the ground. If you’re stumped and want a huge hint, you can see the whole plant here.

guess my name

Wikipedia has a great profile of the genus.

Anniversaries, gardening and otherwise

Dock Ellis baseball cardSome folks see June 12 on the calendar and they think, that’s the anniversary of the launch of GardenRant. (I sent good wishes and some music to get the hippie chicks dancing.) But the GR women share that anniversary with the that of the greatest feat in baseball history, if not all of athletics.

27 years ago today, June 12, 1970, Dock Ellis of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitched a no hitter against the San Diego Padres while he claims he was tripping on LSD.

Long story short: Dock was partying and got his days mixed up and took acid around noon, only to discover he was to pitch that night. (Keven McAlester tells the whole story artfully in the Dallas Observer.)

All my personal experience with Dock’s drug of choice comes only from reading. But I believe him based on his quote:

Sometimes the ball looked like a beach ball. Sometimes it looked like a dot.

Sure, he was more wild than usual, walking 8 and hitting a couple of batters. But you gotta admit, that had to be one wild trip.

The happy ending: Dock cleaned up his act and is now a prison drug counselor. In addition to sharing part of his name with this blog, if you listed his name as it might appear on a roster — last name first, first initial — it spells out the chemical that got the whole story started: Ellis, D.

Needless to say, he got an article in High Times magazine. But his accomplishment is also celebrated in a song by Chuck Brodsky, whose Casey-at-the-bat style lyrics are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, not far from here:

Dock Ellis’s No-No

Listen (mp3)

Go buy Chuck’s Baseball Ballads CD

It was a lovely summer’s morning
An off-day in LA
So thought one Dock Ellis
As he would later say
His girlfriend read the paper
She said, “Dock, this can’t be right…
It says here that you’re pitching
In San Diego tonight”

“Got to get you to the airport”
And so off Dock Ellis flew
His legs were a little bit wobbly
And the rest of him was too
Took a taxi to the ballpark
An hour before the game
Gave some half-assed explanation
Found the locker with his name

Time came to go on out there
Down the corridor
The walls were a little bit wavy
There were ripples in the floor
He went out to the bullpen
To do a bunch of stretches
Loosen up a little
Throw his warm-up pitches

All rose for the national anthem
People took off their hats
Fireworks were exploding
The cokes were already going flat
Dock was back there in the dugout
So many things to watch
Some players spit tobacco juice
Others grabbed their crotch

The umpire hollered, “Play Ball!”
And so it came to be
Dock’s Pirates batted first
And when they went down 1-2-3
Dock’s catcher put his mask on
And he handed Dock the ball
It was 327 feet
To the right & left field walls

The Pirates took the field then
And Dock stood on the rubber
He bounced a couple of pitches
And then he bounced a couple others
You might say about that day
He looked a little wild
The lead-off batter trembled
Nobody knew why Dock Ellis smiled

You walk 8 and you hit a guy
The things that people shout…
Especially your manager
But he didn’t take Dock out
Dock found himself a rythym
And a crazy little spin
Amazing things would happen
When Dock Ellis zeroed in

Sometimes he saw the catcher
Sometimes he did not
Sometimes he held a beach balll
Other times it was a dot
Dock was tossing comets
That were leaving trails of glitter
At the 7th inning stretch
He still had a no-hitter

So he turned to Cash, his buddy
Said, “I got a no-no going”
Speaking the unspeakable
He went back out there throwing
Bottom of the ninth
& He stood high upon the mound
3 more outs to go
He’d have his name in Cooperstown

First up was Cannizzaro
Who flied out to Alou
Kelly grounded out for Dean
The shortstop yelled, “That’s two”
It must’ve been a mad house
The fans upon their feet
The littler ones among them
Standing on their seats

Next up would’ve been Herbel
But Spezio pinch-hit
He took a 3rd strike looking
And officially, that was it
It was a lovely summer’s morning
An off-day in LA
So thought one Dock Ellis
As he would later say

Good news about Pink Flamingos …

pink flamingos… that doesn’t involve John Waters.

According to the AP and Channel 9 in Syracuse, N.Y.:

The original pink flamingo lawn ornament, the symbol of kitsch whose obituary was nearly written after its central Massachusetts manufacturer went out of business, is rising phoenix-like from the ashes and taking wing to Central New York.

A manufacturer that bought the copyright and plastic molds for the original version plans to resume production in Westmoreland. …

The ornaments hit the market in the late 1950s when the color pink was in vogue, and America’s exploding population of suburbanites sought to add flair to their lawns.

But the birds also came to symbolize bad taste, and some residential developments even banned flamingo ornaments from lawns. The bird also became a target of pranksters, some of whom swiped the ornaments from front yards, took them on the road, and then sent photos to their owners showing the kidnapped birds in front of sights like the Grand Canyon.

pink flamingosLocally, I know of one garden tour that arrived with the host (who was along with the tour that day) to find the hosts yard filled with a flock of the pink plastic beauties. It’s called ‘flocking’. At least one Florida church youth group sells flocking insurance as a fund-raiser.

I’ve never had an authentic Featherstone flamingo. But when our new local garden center opens, I’m going straight to the manager and demand they carry them. Read more about pink flamingos.

Don Featherstone, who created the classic pink flamingo in ’57. Union Products sold more than 20 million.

Goats vs. Kudzu

I’ve always been an advocate of using animals to manage vegetation. In this morning’s NY Times: In Tennessee, Goats Eat the ‘Vine That Ate the South’

Chattanooga’s goats have become unofficial city mascots since the Public Works Department decided last year to let them roam a city-owned section of the ridge to nibble the kudzu, the fast-growing vine that throttles the Southern landscape.

The Missionary Ridge goats and the project’s tragicomic turns have created headlines, inspired a folk ballad and invoked more than their share of goat-themed chuckles.

“Usually, in dealing with this, you’ve got to get people past the laugh factor,” said Jerry Jeansonne, a city forestry inspector and the program’s self-described “goat dude.”

Despite the humorous overtones to the city’s methods, the program represents an environmentally friendly effort to grapple with a real problem in Chattanooga and the South.

Read the whole article.