Stake woes

[Bulbous]

I hate to say it but I have numerous pots sitting about with small likely bulbus growth and I have not clue of what they are.  the stake tips are missing.  It is my fault for using the cheepies that I bought locally and became very brittle, the material is likely mostly calcium carbonate. 

[David Pilling]

the material is likely mostly calcium carbonate.

Plant name markers is a topic that often comes up on the PBS list, you can find discussions in the archives about the methods people have adopted.

Despite which I am at the point where nearly every plant I own either has no marker or one with writing that is now illegible due to fading in the light.

General problem with gardening, vendors promote things which don't work because they don't spend their time gardening. Other gardeners promote what works for them and their conditions/plants are not yours. Do it yourself because it is obvious, you're only playing, or in my case 10 years later could never happen. All end up in failure.

Like in many things, boring old organisation or good book keeping is the secret to success. But I have flair, tough...

"Homo Dymo, the ape that likes to go around sticking labels on things".

[Bulbous]

I think I'm going to plant them in a large single pot and let them compete with the winner going into the garden!  fussing over a dozen or so small pots is a pain.

Regards, 

Homo Dymo

[Martin Bohnet]

Well I got to the point I found labels futile and wrote directly on the pots - to then learn that usual eddings/sharpies are not weather tolerant enough. I'm now using special outdoor eddings - ask me again in a few years how that turned out long term...

[CG100]

You can only use them once, but black plastic will take a very long time to degrade and become brittle, so I use cheap black labels by preference, and scratch/engrave the information on them.

Anything that stays in the greenhouse has white labels written on with pencil. They do become brittle, but it is seldom a problem leading to lost ID.

[David Pilling]

Some PBS list discussions on plant labels:

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbslist/2023-January/h6csc8kk6jpevftij383o225l0.html

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbslist/2022-September/1li7av78f40a0uu3fm49nc6275.html

[Sylvia]

I've found black labels when written on with pencil readily take erasures and can be used again.  The ones I use I've had for at least a dozen years - maybe came from England? - and none have become broken or brittle.  Don't know what I'll do when I run out ...

Sylvia Sykora in the Oakland, CA Hills
Under dense, drippy fog for the third day in a row.

 

[MarcR]

One solution that might work for everyone is to check your markers every 6 mos and replace as needed.  Dynotape plastic labels attached to wooden or metal stakes with small screws (the glue is not reliable) seem to be long lasting.

[Robert_Parks]

One solution that might work for everyone is to check your markers every 6 mos and replace as needed.  Dynotape plastic labels attached to wooden or metal stakes with small screws (the glue is not reliable) seem to be long lasting.

Growing in pots and lifting almost everything every year lets me keep labels renewed.

It doesn't help when the crows come in and have a fiesta of throwing labels around, or going for the gusto and tossing 2-4 inch pots all over the back patio and playing with the plants thus uprooted.

[PaulSiskind]

In my outdoor garden beds, I've used these PVC labels for 2 years (left in place all year round); they've held up pretty well so far:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09VGMM6YQ/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I hand-write on them using a black "paint pen," which doesn't fade the way that markers fade (i.e. even the "extreme duty" markers fade in just one year).  The paint pen took a little to get used to using, and I have to let one side dry before makring the reverse; but for a cheap system it's worked out well for me.

[MarcR]

One solution that might work for everyone is to check your markers every 6 mos and replace as needed.  Dynotape plastic labels attached to wooden or metal stakes with small screws (the glue is not reliable) seem to be long lasting.

Growing in pots and lifting almost everything every year lets me keep labels renewed.

It doesn't help when the crows come in and have a fiesta of throwing labels around, or going for the gusto and tossing 2-4 inch pots all over the back patio and playing with the plants thus uprooted.

Robert,

If you use plastic pots, you can screw the Dynatape labels directly to the pot.

[petershaw]

One solution that might work for everyone is to check your markers every 6 mos and replace as needed.  Dynotape plastic labels attached to wooden or metal stakes with small screws (the glue is not reliable) seem to be long lasting.

Growing in pots and lifting almost everything every year lets me keep labels renewed.

It doesn't help when the crows come in and have a fiesta of throwing labels around, or going for the gusto and tossing 2-4 inch pots all over the back patio and playing with the plants thus uprooted.

I can relate to that with squirrels though they just know stuff over. 

I've been trying to train crows to trade peanuts for trinkets, but they are not willing to give me anything back.
 
I did see a video where someone taught a crow to stack pots by size for a treat. Maybe they can at least clean up after their feast!

[MarcR]

If you use 2" chicken wire to build a cage around your potted plants it will protect them from the crows without seriously hampering your enjoyment of them.
Alternatively you could get a motion detector and a sling shot and make them feel unwelcome.

[Lee Poulsen]

There have been many discussions that point out that vinyl stakes (including label stakes made from old mini-blinds) last much longer than the cheaper polystyrene stakes.

That being said, even the vinyl stakes will eventually start to form cracks if out in the sun long enough (years). So in my experience, the two longest lasting methods, using vinyl stakes (unless you want to go a much more expensive route and use metal labels that have the text embossed or engraved on them), are to either use extra fine tip oil-based paint pens (not acrylic or xylene) because no permanent marker of any strength resists eventually fading in sunlight, or make labels with a label maker using black on clear tape and then covering the vinyl stake with the label.

For some reason I don't quite know, the label maker label on vinyl stakes is the superior method. The text never fades, and the adhesive somehow lasts decades such that even when the vinyl finally starts to crack, the clear label still holds the stake together. I have a couple of pots that have some bulbs I received from two different people back in the late '90s that still have the original labelled stakes that came with them. Both are label maker labels stuck on white vinyl stakes that have actually cracked, but are still held together by the label which has not faded in the slightest, still solid black text.

Black oil-based paint marker doesn't fade either, but the vinyl eventually becomes brittle enough to break easily after about 15-20 years. I have a few really old vinyl labels that were probably 4 times as thick as normal that don't bend, and they're still whole.

Maybe using a paint pen on a thin flat rock might outlast anything else, since one of the things some people use paint pens for is to paint rocks.

I've also just started using a medium-point oil-based white paint pen to write on the outside of the pot itself to see if that lasts a long time. I originally got those white wax pencils that some nurseries use to write on the outside of their pots. But discovered that there are creatures out there that eat the white wax. They're very nice to write with, and don't fade. But I started noticing that little pieces of the letters started to randomly disappear over time--until the words became illegible. There was no smearing or fading. So now I'm trying the paint pen method.

[Robert_Parks]

If you use 2" chicken wire to build a cage around your potted plants it will protect them from the crows without seriously hampering your enjoyment of them.
Alternatively you could get a motion detector and a sling shot and make them feel unwelcome.

Yeah...there will be a net cover installed...the other thing they do is bite Arisaema & Amorphophallus buds as they come up, presumably because they looks like yummy meat treats.

Today, it was clarified that I have ravens AND crows...the crows were harassing the lone raven hanging out near my back yard, so no destructive play. This while I was potting dumped pots, and writing X## labels, that might get connected to the lost labels in time...in the grand scheme of things, losing the labels on 1.5 percent of my collection is not that bad.