This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Labels or forget
I'm always busy, like most others, at this time of year digging up some tender perennials, or dividing perennials and, in my haste, forget to label what they are. Some I will recognise but others not......I.e. where the difference is of colour or variety. It is so frustrating when I come to replant in spring when I don't know which colour, maybe of echinacea, agastache, etc. , I'm plantIng. This is ESP annoying when a colour association is wanted and you get it wrong.
Just me? Or are you just as over hasty?
This year though I have armed myself with spare marker pens and labels so I won't make that mistake this year.
0
Posts
I was about to throw out a seed tray with what I thought were weed grass seedlings when I remembered that I had planted agapanthus seeds there
. At least I hope that is what I have now. Either that or the weeds have become very regimented and now grow only in straight lines.
I'm not bothered by colour associations - just what it tastes like.
I'm always frustrated when the OH labels things without the variety though. Some stuff I want to buy again but can't and others I want to avoid. I've tried to make her more organised but failed miserably. I'm just content to label my own stuff on my own plot and let her get on with it....
I know that feeling - looking at seed trays in the spring and being completely confounded as to what is poking its head out of the ground.
What marker do you use?. I label things, but then find that the name on the label has faded.
Also with labels outside, even though I push them well in, the birds pull them out and scatter them.
I was quite good this year labelled all my seeds and wrote their names on in CD permanent pen but it turns out the bloody pen wasn't permanent. So now I have a lot of blank labels
Learnt my lesson the hard way but now I own three sharpie permanent pens just for the garden
Fidget - i have a label maker now, and they don't fade at all. But when i was writing labels i found that pencil was best, pushed right into the ground so the writing is covered. You have to slide the label out to see what it says, but it stops it from fading.
I always run out of labels at some point and think I'll easily remember that particular plant but when it comes down to it I rarely do. I think it's time to buy a serious amount of them instead of a few packs of 25 each year. I used a quite expensive waterproof marker a few years ago only to find nearly all of writing had faded by the end of the year so went back to using good old 2B pencils - so frustrating to find a plant label with nothing written on it! BTW, welcome back Verd.
I bought 2 brother labellers. The first lot faded. The 2nd lot have laminated labels and seem to be permanent. Only trouble now is the cost of replacement tapes.
Why not be adventurous! Bung it in and see what happens! I do it sometimes out of devilment. Some are truly spectacular, others not so. Its all fun.