Re: CULT: marking and mapping

I gave up on having healthy irises in mixed beds, unless they are
extremely aggressive and companion/weed-tolerant cultivars.  Most of my
plants are in rows.  Rows make both controlling weeds and keeping track
of locations much easier for me, tho I still have some hand drawn maps
of the mixed weedy messes that used to be beds, just in case something
is still alive and manages to bloom.

I try to keep everything on a spreadsheet, but the information seems to
always be at least 6 months out of date, with marginally legible
handwritten muddy updates & other notes all over the margins of
printouts.

I use the vinyl window blinds also, but have never seen them in the
trash or yard sales.  They are cheap new - around $3 for one window's
worth at the Dollar store is enough for at least a year of new
plantings.

I also use a paint pen (thanks to whoever suggested these here a few
years back).  The paint is slower drying than the cattle ear tag marker
solvent based paint pens that I used to use, but much less messy and
better for small lettering.  I wish they made a solvent based paint pen
with fine point - it was handy for labeling dew soaked plants as I dug
them in the early morning.  Can't do that with the craft type paint pens
which I think must be water based latex.

Each plant gets three markers - one with just the name and a hole
punched in it and attached to a wire stake (bought hundreds of very
inexpensive green painted ones at WalMart intended to be used to hold
Christmas lights); one with the name, source, and year stuck in the
ground in front of the plant; and one under an ever-handy small rock
next to the plant.

As mentioned before, the buried labels won't fade and are much less
likely to get misplaced during weeding, cultivating etc.

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
talk archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
photos archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>
online R&I <http://www.irisregister.com>

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