Record Keeping in the Garden

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Reading one of Angie's previous posts on record keeping in the garden and her mention of Beth's Lesson Learned, I thought I would describe my own record keeping system for the garden. Describing that system might offer an opportunity to improve it, in other words to learn some lessons of my own.

Crocuses ( crop from last year)

The system

When I get a new plant, whether I buy it, am given it or have grown it from seed, I remove the original label and replace it with one of my own permanent labels. I have described in a previous post how I make these permanent labels.  To make a long story short, I recycle slats from discarded aluminum blinds, which I cut to appropriate length.

Plant labels made with recycled aluminum blinds

There are numerous reasons I do not use the original label that may have come with the plant.

•   It is invariably made of plastic which, of course, means it has a rather short life in the garden, especially in the sun. My aluminum labels last much longer.
• The original label often has a picture of the plant which might come in handy in the future. 
•  If my own label gets lost in the garden, I can make a new one by referring to the information on the original label that came with the plant.
• We have all had plants that were mislabeled. If you still have the original label, you can check if the picture on it corresponds to the plant you have actually growing in the garden. 

     The original plant labels I staple into a loose-leaf binder.

• They are stapled chronologically. I find I often have an idea of the year I bought a plant. I can find the label I am looking for much faster if they are sorted by date.
• If the plant was grown from seed, I staple the seed package in the binder.  Labels in a flat of seedlings are more easily knock off and lost than labels stuck in the ground. If,  like me, you start a lot of seedlings, when you lose the label for one set of plants, a quick look at the seed packages stapled in the binder might help identify what the mystery seedlings are. Even if you know what they are, the following year, you might want to be reminded where you had bought some seeds that did well.

• For bulbs and the like that come in a package with a picture, it is that picture I staple in the binder.
• I also list the plants that are given to me or that I get in plant swaps.This is one area where the system often fails. Somehow, I tend to forget more easily to include gifts and swaps in the binder (perhaps because usually they do not come with a label to start with).

On the binder page next to where I staple the original label or package, I write information like the date it was bought, where I bought it and the price as well as the place where I put the plant in the garden.

This is another area where I realize improvements are necessary. Quite a few of these indications of just where the plant is growing are vague or misleading. I might say "Next to the white tulips"  (where are these white tulips??). Over the years plants die or are moved, and sometimes the indications no longer make much sense. I need a definite identification for each area of the garden.


My main problem, though, is ignoring my own system. The times of the year when I am planting are often hectic. I usually have too many plants to put in (surprise!) and want to get them in as soon as possible. 

I tell myself: "Surely I don't need to write this one down, I will remember it". Of course a few months later, I realize I have forgotten what the plant or the cultivar is amd where it came from.  Of course, I have no information on that plant in my binder.
 
In the shed, I also have in a pot where I put labels of the "dear departed". Psychologically, it might not be a good idea to keep these labels.   They are a reminder of all the plants I have killed over the years, and they are getting to be more numerous than the plants still growing in the garden!