Label It or Lose It

It happens all the time when visitors are quizzing me about the garden.

“It’s a--” and then I can’t remember the name of a favorite plant that I know like the names of my own children. That’s what plant labels are for. They’re like garden cue cards. A quick peek at the label can avoid a mental fumble.

A good label would have saved me the embarrassment of writing about a great new salvia that I called Salvia sinaloensis when it was actually Salvia chiapensis, both named after Mexican states but very different plants.

They can also tell you when it was planted, in case you want to repeat some fortuitous timing or figure out how old a plant is. A label can even tell where the plant came from, should you need to get another.

Labels are becoming absolutely essential as more and more unusual and unheard-of plants show up at nurseries, frequently without common names. Should you need to replace one or get another, it helps to know that it’s a Lessingia filaginifolia ‘Silver Carpet,’ not just “that tough, low-growing gray plant.”

A sampling of plants from my new front garden will give you an idea of how hopeless trying to remember all these new names can be:

Arctostaphylos pajaroensis ‘Paradise,’ Rhodophila bifida, Sideritis syrica,Stachys coccinea, Cotula reticulata, Schizostylus coccineus, Orthosantos multifera, Daboecia cantabria ‘Atropurpea’ and Poa costineata.

As I said, hopeless!

Labels are important even with less adventuresome plants. When a tomato you’re experimenting with ripens extra early, you can check the label to see when it was planted. Maybe you put it in earlier than usual. If not, you’ve found yourself a tomato that ripens early in your garden, and you know the name.

There’s been an explosion of plant labels at nurseries and especially in garden catalogs these last few years. There are now labels of every conceivable shape, type, material and size, even color.

There are vintage-looking designs that could go into a Victorian cottage garden and labels you can buy by the hundreds that are not too different from the one that came with the plant.

They’re made of copper, zinc, plastic, wood and even stainless steel. Some you can tie to the plant, most are put in the ground at its base, but a few have their own elegant little garden stakes or legs that hold the label high enough to read easily. A prize rose may deserve nothing less.

You can’t count on the label that came with the plant. There’s been a trend recently to use computer labels that don’t last, or labels that are large or colorful--a good selling tool but an eyesore in the garden. Some nurseries don’t even use labels anymore but simply write the name on the side of the can.

The only thing close to a bulletproof nursery label are the ones that come on roses, often made of metal with embossed names and little wires that attach it to a cane. They last at least until you prune off that cane.

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With vegetables and seed-grown annuals, a time-honored practice is simply to skewer the seed packet on a stake and let it be the label, but by the time your vegetables are ripe, that seed packet has probably turned from paper back to pulp.

One company has improved on this practice by making little plastic clips that hold the seed packet.

Another has taken it one step further, making clear plastic boxes on short stakes that you can put the label inside, so even after a few months of rain or irrigation, you can still read the packet.

Wood labels are another traditional approach, one that is pleasantly appropriate in a garden setting, but they last only months before they rot.

But I confess that on more than one occasion, I have looked for a wood label and found only half of it, usually the top half with something like “Tomato C . . .” with the all-important variety missing. Was it a ‘Celebrity’ or a ‘Champion’ that tasted so good last summer?

Stainless steel labels solve this problem and will probably outlast your house, though the writing on them most likely won’t. Zinc is nearly as durable.

The pen or pencil you use to write with on a label is often the label’s undoing. There are some new pens made for writing on labels that are supposed to last and last. Some are paint pens that use enamels instead of inks. One is even guaranteed not to fade.

The stainless steel markers, for instance, come with a “fade-proof paint-pen.” Other writing instruments are variations on the felt marker. I can tell you that ordinary felt markers, even those called permanent, will fade, often within a year.

Of course, you can use an ordinary soft pencil. I’ve found that the pencils we use in editing, Berol Draughting 314, last longer than regular felt pens on plastic labels.

You can get around the pen or pencil dilemma by impressing the name on some labels. Write on a copper label with an ordinary ballpoint pen, and while the ink won’t stick, the name will become permanently embossed.

Plastic won’t rot or decompose, but inexpensive plastic labels tend to get brittle with age, and just when you need to check the label, you’re likely to find that the top has snapped off and become buried in the mulch. Nurseries sell better plastic labels that will last for years.

Many different kinds of plastic labels are available, though only a few are easily found. At a trade show, I was amazed at how many different kinds of plastic labels are out there because I have so seldom seen them at nurseries.

One mail-order source will sell you what seems like a lifetime supply--a box of 1,000 4-inch labels for just over $30. Believe it or not, I’ve already gone through one box and just had to order another.

A label is only as good as where you place it. Often, when I go to look at a label, I can’t find it.

This was understandable a few years ago when my children were young. They liked to rearrange labels in my garden, from short to tall for instance, or all the pink labels on one side and all the blue on another. I once found all the labels neatly lined up like glistening white tombstones, marking the graves of fallen action figures.

Today, my only excuse is that I simply forgot where I stuck it. I want to see plants in my garden, not plastic labels, so I hide them, pushing them almost under the soil, but a single fallen leaf may cover them. Keep the garden mulched and even the whitest plastic labels can’t be found.

I finally asked some friends who work at botanic gardens how they keep track of all their labels, and they have an obvious solution. They put all their labels on the north side of plants. At least you’re not looking all around the plant but can concentrate your search on one side only.

And next time you forget the name of a plant, you can say, “Just a minute, let me check the label,” and maybe actually find it.

Where to by these plant markers. K5

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Where to Buy

A.M. Leonard, 241 Fox Drive, P.O. Box 816, Piqua, OH 45356. (800) 543-8955.

Ferry Morse Seed Co., P.O. Box 1620, Fulton, KY 42041-1620. (800) 626-3392.

Gardener’s Supply, 128 Intervale Road, Burlington, VT 05401. (800) 955-3370. Web site: https://www.gardeners.com

Natural Gardening Co., 517 San Anselmo Ave., San Anselmo, CA 94960. (707) 766-9303.

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Copper tie-on (nurseries or Gardener’s Supply)

Stainless tie-on BotanicaLabels (nurseries or The Natural Gardening Co.)

Four-inch plastic, from a box of 1,000 (A.M. Leonard)

Copper pot marker (Gardener’s Supply)

Plastic T-label (nurseries)

Plastic box for seed packets (nurseries or Ferry Morse)

Copper perennial marker with legs (Gardener’s Supply)

Zinc with legs (Gardener’s Supply)

Large 12-inch wood (nurseries or The Natural Gardening Co.)

Rapiclip Terracotta-colored plastic (nurseries)

Clip to hold seed packet (nurseries)