Re: Plant labels?
- Subject: Re: Plant labels?
- From: T* &* M* R*
- Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 08:20:11 +1200
Nan Sterman wrote:
>
> Hello folks!
>
> I have finally (after five years of planning) planted my front yard
> and need to label the kazillion plants that have gone into the
> ground. I use Paw Paw Everlast metal labels which are terrific but I
> am still plagued by problems with what kind of marking pen or pencil
> to use. I've tried pencil (rubs off), Sharpie indelible (fades),
> white out pens (last a long time but are so white that they make the
> lables stick out rather than fade into the background).
>
> what do you recommend? What lasts a long time in your garden?
Nan
I use a Scripto Garden Marker. This is a black indelible pen specially
formulated for outside use and sold here in garden centres. However,this
is not of itself completely resistant to UV and still fades out over a
couple of years WHERE IT IS EXPOSED TO SUNLIGHT.
There is a way out of this dilemma which I discovered some years ago by
accident. Not liking the "cemetery" effect of a lot of labels sticking
up from the ground among my plants, I tend to more or less bury mine and
was most interested to find on one occasion that while the writing on
the exposed part of the label had largely faded the buried part was in
pristine conditon.
So now I write on the bottom half of a label rather than the top end and
neatly bury each one so only the top is sticking out to locate it by,
and the labeling sometimes outlives the plant!
In my garden a buried label has another advantage as it keeps it from
the beady attention of my "friends" the English blakbirds, which take an
unholy delight in uprooting and scattering any they happen to notice.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
