My labeling and database practices are sitting on the fence between old paper practices and contemporary edata practices. Acquisition data is written by hand, ink on paper, in the garden journals I've been keeping for over forty years. Each year I begin a new acquisition series identified by a two digit code for the year. Each newly acquired plant is given another number according to the order in which it was received that year. Thus 11-194 means the 194th plant acquired in 2011. Since they occur in numerical order in the journals, It's easy to look them up and find them. About those journals: when I began blogging four years ago I wondered what effect my blogging would have on my manuscript journals. As it turns out, there has been very little. I’m very selective about what goes onto the blog, and the hand written journals are still an important part of my gardening life. I don't use plant names as a primary identifier in acquisition records in the journals, but I do record the "as received" name. Plant names change too frequently to be of use, and even when they don't change they often turn out to be only approximations. In cases where several examples of clonal material have been acquired, a letter suffix is added to distinguish each item received, as in 11-191a, 11-191b and so on (these are real numbers and refer to a group of unlabeled ferns picked up at a local plant exchange). The nomenclature of some plants in commerce is so goofy that it pays to be able to identify each element right from the beginning without resorting to names Where I do use plant names is in the computer file for sorting images. As of this morning there are 788 files for genera, and each species has a folder within the file for its genus. Each cultivar gets a separate folder too. There must be thousands of such folders now, but I have not counted them. Name changes are easily handled by simply changing the name of the folder and re-sorting it: the acquisition numbers are built into the file name for each image. Typical image names looks like this: Fritillaria 05-164 bucharica, Fritillaria 07-213 bucharica. These two names represent two different acquisitions of Fritillaria sent as bucharica, one in 2005 and one in 2007. If, when the plants bloomed, one or both of them had turned out to be something else, it would have been easy to change the name but the acquisition number would remain the same. For seeds I use the Index Seminum I started in 1972. I was 29 years old when I started this and now I'm almost seventy: lots of memories there! This Index Seminum consists of numerically consecutive line entries giving only the most basic data: the as received name, the source, sometimes the seed count., and for seeds received from the major exchanges, a cross reference to the number attached to those seeds in the source exchange list. The IS number is written on the packaging for seeds as their acquisition is recorded in the IS, and then the seeds go into appropriate storage (usually the refrigerator). For labels I use cut down plastic Venetian blinds - I'll buy them when I see them on sale. Avoid soft metal blinds: they can have sharp edges and corners when cut. Soft lead pencils make a very durable mark and are my preference. For plants in pots, there are often two labels, one buried deep in the pot to escape mischief, and another at the surface to allow quick identification. These labels will generally have only two data items: for plants the acquisition number and the as received or corrected name, for seed the Index Seminum number (these have an IS prefix) and the as received or corrected name. For seeds I'll often add a date sown. In recent years I’ve gotten into the habit of writing the labels used at the surface of pots backwards: that way, if you can identify a plant at the generic level, you don’t have to pull the entire label to read the buried species name or cultivar name. Here’s an example: 10-387 ‘Kin Tsukumo’ nudum Psilotum. I also use Dymo plastic and metal embossed labels. These endure indefinitely, but over the years the plants themselves sometime move away from the label. In the case of woody plants, the branch to which the label is attached sometimes dies and falls off. Then animals moving through the garden inadvertently drag them around. I’ve mentioned this before to this group, but it’s worth repeating: I have some garden peonies received back in the 1960s which have Dymo plastic labels buried among the roots: the labels look as good as new a half century later! Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.0º North, 77.1º West, USDA zone 7 My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ <http://www.jimmckenney.com/> BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ <http://www.pvcnargs.org/> Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/ <http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/> _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/