Baseball. Gardening. Baseball.
Sarracenia. Baseball. Sarracenia.
What the…?!?
Yes folks, there are parallels between these two seemingly separate worlds. For example, check out this amazing rad post by fellow garden blogger John Markowski – a must read: Why Gardening is Just Like Baseball. And dude – if you haven’t figured it out by now by now, I am a San Francisco Giants fan and gotta represent with my plants one way or another! So, let’s look at this again, shall we? Baseball. Sarracenia. Baseball. Pitcher. Pitcher … plant. Sarracenia. Pitcher plant aaaaaaaaaaaand… check out the catcher plant. (Heh, catcher plant… Get it?!)
Anyway, one of my very talented homies, Chris Nieman of Sticky Fingas Customs (follow him on Instagram, @duffmanivxx) creates custom vinyl stickers. As the season started this year, I was inspired by the artistry of Japanese apple farmers for this next experimental project. Inspired by the work on apples to give a few Sarracenias a freekin’ badass SF Giants tattoo.
SF Giants vinyl stickers created by Chris Nieman.
Yeah, I know I can get SF Giant decals at various locations, but I needed stickers that were a little smaller than whatever I could find out there. Thankful that Chris hooked it up! He sent me the above photographed stickers in the mail.
Stick it to ’em. The next step was to place the sticker on a select pitcher. You can see in the photo to the left that I’m using tweezers to apply said sticker, as suggested by Chris. I found that I didn’t have to do that if I was careful and was able to simply peel the stickers off using my fingers and apply carefully. My main goal was to apply the sticker before the pitcher really colors up. Being that I’m in a sub par lighting position right now means the plant won’t color up as fast – this plant should really be a deep rich and intense crimson red by now. The colors of my plants right now are kind of boring at this point but that will all change once the lighting situation is fixed. I’ll keep you all updated on how that lighting project is coming along. Once the plant gets to be deep red, that’s when I plan on removing the sticker and what I am hoping for is the SF insignia to be left imprinted on the pitcher. Pitcher plants representing the SF Giants. Dude, now that’s BADASS. I chose 3 plants that (under ideal lighting) would get very rich colors. Below are photos of when I first applied the stickers on 17 May 2012. I will update again once these pitchers color up!
Chris, thanks again bro for hookin’ it up!
Sarracenia ‘Alucard’ – “Prince of Darkness”
Sarracenia leucophylla “Purple Lips” x flava var. rubricorpora
Sarracenia purpurea ssp. venosa v. burkeii
By the way – if any one in the SF Giants organization is reading this — hire me to be your freekin’ gardener or something. I’ll also design and hybridize custom Sarracenias for the team!
Imagine – pitcher plants named after pitchers…
GO GIANTS!!!
From a one bedroom condo in San Francisco with tiny patio years ago that I totally packed out, to a two bedroom condo with larger patio (check out the photo to the left – that was my patio in 2005) to my childhood home home with big ol’ yard and bright ol’ light and great water that let me grow many plants, to 1500 sq foot sub par greenhouse where I am at now… oh, it never ends. It really is a wild and awesome adventure. Don’t get me wrong though. I’m still thankful. It could of been a lot worse. It’s simply – life. Yes, a few plants are doing well in these conditions – Nepenthes, Heliamphora, and Cephalotus seem happy here, so it’s not a complete loss. But it could be better. Anyway – because of my less than ideal conditions, *many* plants were lost this year – perhaps in what was my worst year ever. It happens. Trying to negotiate the challenges at the current spot with the lighting, water, air circulation, and old facilities make it, well… let’s just say “difficult” at best. On top of that, I’ve gone through so much this in the past year. Letting go of the house, moving, a drastic change in employment – life’s been interesting lately. So many times this past year I’ve thought about walking away from this passion of growing plants. Yeah, it has gotten that bad at at times. I have thought about just dropping it all — and just walking away. I don’t know if any gardeners out there have faced anything like that — but damn, I sure have. Yep. It was that depressing for me. Is it madness to continue in this direction? Maybe. I am trying not to let the fear of failure get the best of me and if this new venture doesn’t work out – hell, I at least I can say, “I tried.” Giving up on growing has crossed my mind from time to time. No lie. However, the more I think about it – spending time in the garden and doing what I do with the plants was and is my form of non-destructive therapy to cope with all this “stuff” going on. Being surrounded by this living energy and seeing things grow (even in sucky conditions) has helped me to deal with all of life’s crazy moments. Gardening is part of me and I realize there’s no way I can ever separate myself from something so woven tightly in the the fabric of my being. Even when times look so fucked up, things manage to work out one way or another. I have to remember, it will all be okay. I am thankful for the encouragement from my friends and family. So thankful to have my wife, her encouragement and her patience with me throughout it all… And I’m so very thankful for all of you readers who allow me to share some of my insane passion and my life’s garden story with you. Like I said before: my garden is a living and breathing repository where life’s events are tucked away and recorded. It is my living journal – a collection of my memories. Each plant is an icon of an event: they are the witnesses, they are the scribes, and they are the story tellers.
Several Drosera binata’s hangin’ out. They are just OK for their condition. They are very long, and have gotten quite leggy – stretched due to the light.
The Dionaea. Some of the first ones to move out of here.
This is brighter. 
A new road… filled with much brighter housing!
Looking forward…
