August 25th, 2013 at 6:00 am 
by Ron Cervenka A few days before opening day 2013, I attended a press conference that detailed the many great Dodger Stadium renovations that had taken place during the off-season to the tune of $100 million. Among the many improvements was a monumental landscaping project that brought thousands of beautiful new trees, plants and flowers to Dodger Stadium – including Petunias in the Pavilions, of which a couple of articles were written about here on ThinkBlueLA.
When those articles ran, I was a bit skeptical about whether or not the Petunias in the Pavilions would be able to survive in their harsh environment – not a harsh weather environment but a harsh fan environment. In fact, my exact words were: “I figure that they’ll never survive a month anyway amongst the unruly and uncontrollable bleacher creatures, or so our bad rap goes.”
As beautiful as the Petunias in the Pavilions were on opening day, I made a mental note to keep an eye on how they were doing as the season progressed. I had been told that petunias are very colorful flowers and that “they bloom in June and July and will be quite beautiful then.”
I bought into the whole petunia thing hook, line and sinker and was actually looking forward to seeing these beautiful flowers in full bloom right in the heart of the baseball season. Unfortunately, my initial skepticism turned out to be correct and the Petunias in the Pavilions kind of struggled a bit. Okay, they struggled a lot. In fact, the whole Petunias in the Pavilions experiment was a complete disaster.
Here is a photographic time line of the Petunias in the Pavilions:
March 29, 2013 – The beautiful Petunias in the Pavilions
Opening Day April 1, 2013 – the peanut shells have already begun.
June 12, 2013 – “They bloom in June and July.”
June 24, 2013 – Perhaps these ones are late bloomers.
August 12, 2013 – The Sole Survivor.
August 14, 2013 – With the Petunias in the Pavilions completely gone, fans began using the empty planter boxes as trash receptacles.
August 23, 2013 – When fans arrived at Dodger Stadium for the series between the Dodgers and Red Sox, the planter boxes were gone.
Thus, the Petunias in the Pavilions are now nothing more than a distant memory.
…but the Dodgers are in first place!
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Author’s Note:
Although I don’t doubt that there were some less than scrupulous people who actually did dump food, drink, peanut and sunflower seed shells and other trash into the petunia planter boxes, I honestly believe that the real cause of the flowers eventually demise was due to the lack of an adequate irrigation and drainage system in the planter boxes (or if there was one, it was well concealed). I will be the first to admit that I know absolutely nothing about petunias or horticulture in any form but the soil in the planter boxes always appeared to be extremely dry and I never saw anyone manually watering the flowers.
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@Think_BlueLA I didn’t notice the planter boxes were gone. Too bad I was hoping the petunias would be replenished at some point.
Like any plants they need some care – especially watering. We find our petunias do better in partial shade and not in full sun all of the time. They use a lot of water and the dead blossoms must be cut of (dead headed) to keep them blooming. Again, like any plant their job is to make seeds so once that really starts the production of new blossoms decreases.
Putting garbage in the boxes regardless of the state of the flowers is one of my pet peeves in life. You buy the stuff – you pay for the container – it is yours. Don’t leave if for someone else to clean up.
At the risk of appearing cold and calloused – better the petunias than the Dodgers!
RT @Think_BlueLA: New post – The Plight of the Petunias in the Pavilions