Re:The perfect (but mythical) plant label

I have been looking for some handsome but unobtrusive labels for a hardy fuchsia collection in a local botanic garden. Here is what I've found, which I'll take to the curator tomorrow so she can decide which to use:

In a garden centre: some small terracotta pot saucers. These are glazed on the inside and unglazed on the bottom, and look really good, but are more expensive than the dishes below.
In a kitchen department:various sizes of pottery ramekins. These are in muted colours, but the bottoms are off-white, which might be too obtrusive.

I was going to use a paint pen to write on the bottoms of these, but found a china marker (grease pencil) worked well, and I didn't have to go outside to a well-ventilated spot. I could do it at the kitchen table with a cup of tea beside me.

In a tile shop: some long narrow glazed tiles for edgings, or you can buy inexpensive square tiles and cut them into narrow pieces. ( I've never cut tile, so I don't know whether it is easy to do.)

These all cost somewhere around a dollar each, so would be too expensive for anything other than a small collection.

But how about these no cost/low cost ideas?

People frequently bring cartons of small clay pots to garden club meetings, hoping someone will use them. How about an upside-down small pot with the name in grease pencil on the side? You can push the pot down into the soil to stabilize it, the name would be easy to read, and the clay colour blends with the soil in the garden.

Or, pieces of broken pots.

--
Diane Whitehead  Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
maritime zone 8
cool mediterranean climate (dry summer, rainy winter - 68 cm annually)
sandy soil

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