We deal with this on the winter sowing forum all the time. Yes sharpies and many other pens fade. Paint pens do not fade, however, they are expensive, stinky to use, and they do flake off somewhat.

One of the simplest ways I've found to mark the seedlings is with extra slats of mini-blinds, cut up into marker size sections, and using plain old pencil. The pencil is surprisingly durable and you simply erase it to re-use the marker.Having all those white markers sticking out of the ground is admittedly not attractive. But, I grow way too many seedlings and plants to remember all of them and haven't found a better way yet.

This year I'm experimenting with some tongue depressors that were treated with spar varnish and using paint pen - for the daylily seedlings - I wanted something a little less garish.

I do exctly what terrene does. Works wonderfully and yes it is a bit ugly to have white things sticking up all over your garden, so I try to bury the blind so that I just have about an inch sticking out. That way they are usually only visible when the garden is dormant. I have the label behind the plant and as soon as the plant begins to grow, the label is not seen any more.

Grease pencils if you can find them, last. My problem is the plastic in the blinds degrades over time and snaps easily when raking at the end/beginning of the season. I saved tops from frozen juice containers, that worked for a time but they get harder and harder to find. I have yet to find a label that lasts as long as I am gardening!! I tried mapping. I keep the label from every plant, I put in my garden and document in my garden notebook..but then I get to splitting and moving and things get lost.

My black eyed susan's are about to bloom and I am very excited. I too had a habit of pulling them as their immature jagged leaves look so weed like!!

I use long term fancy metal markers on some, grease pencil tags on others, and trust my memory on others.
My greatest resource and one I go back to time and time again is paper drawings of my yard with things written down.

I have a huge yard so I have a binder with different sections- "east side bed" and "front north bed" and "hell strip" and so on.
Other folks do it with computer programs but I am a paper and pencil kind of person. I did the initial drawings perfectly scaled using my survey plat then made copies of each section as well as saving copies of the blanks for the future. Then I sat down on the patio with a tall cool drink and marked out my zones and major trees and shrubs.

This is a great winter project for when you want to be gardening but weather isn't cooperating. I can't tell you how many times I have forgotten which daylily is which or the dogs lost a marker and my paper drawings have saved me.

zinc coated labels.. and a brothers Ptouch label maker aside [thats the real way] ...

the common pencil is pure carbon .. half life of a bazilion years ...

i too used garbage picked old mini blinds .. back when those were special order only ... today.. you probably get some at wallyworld for fitty cents.. lol ..

they do not need to be above ground.. just pick a compass direction.. and use it.. for example.. i put all mine 6 to 8 inches from the plant .. lets say the edge of the hole at planting.. on the NORTH SIDE ... i always know where to look .. and ALWAYS bury the marked part.. to avoid UV damage ...

or collect decorative rocks.. and put the marker.. under the rock.. and put the rock on the north side ...

and perhaps.. in fall.. leave one of the bunch uncut for winter.. so you will 'know' what is supposed to be there..

i used to have this problem.. with full anal fall cleanup.. then forgetting in spring.. we have ALL been there.. done this... its part of the learning curve..

i usually didnt remember ... until about august.. wondering what happened to them all .. lol

ken

ps: the simplest solution.. is a digital camera.. just take pix of the beds in their full glory.. and before you go out in spring.. refer back.. just a memory trick ...

Do a garden map. Markers of any kind get ripped up by a hoe or whatever. And before the garden leafs out in the spring, they give the appearance of some kind of tragic cemetery.

Kevin

The mouse cemetary! Yes a garden map is a good idea. I am making one for the new daylily garden, where I really want to remember what is growing where. Markers or a map aren't necessary for most of the gardens though, the plants are easily identifiable.

For the seedlings the mini-blind markers work best. Seedlings are usually planted in temporary patches and each patch gets a marker and sometimes each seedling. Sometimes I'll just use sticks to mark the rest of the seedlings. This way I can tell if one or more of the seedlings failed to appear in the Spring. And they're easily moved when it's time to transplant the seedlings to more permanent locations. Also I re use many of them, because I sow a lot of the same annuals every Spring.

We've been making our own aluminum plant tags out of pop cans for many years now. I ran across the directions on-line by accident one day - was looking for some plants and found it. My DH even did a demonstration of how to make the tags at a local plant swap one year. We use aluminum "hooks" sold in the fence department at Home Depot to use on chain link fence instead of a coat hanger. And I have a Brother P Touch label maker that I use to add the name of the plant. But you can easily use a ball point pen, pressing hard to "emboss" the plant name on the label.

Here's the directions:http://willowbrookacres.com/planttags.html

Linda

I do something similar to Ken. I buy (yes, I actually pay for these, lol) white plastic markers that are about 3 inches long, 1/2 inch wide, and have a point at the bottom. I use a Brother P-Touch label maker, and put the label on the marker. Then I bury it shallowly next to the plant. (no mouse cemetery for me!) I like Ken's idea of always using the same side - hadn't thought of that one.

I always say I will do a map. Actually, I have done several, standing outside looking at the beds, writing on the back of an envelope or other piece of scrap paper I grabbed out of my car because I was too lazy to go in the house for an envelope or piece of scrap paper, and had every intention of tranferring it to BOTH a real, new, clean sheet of paper, neatly and more to scale, AND to the computer. It has never happened...

Dee

I have so many perennials and so this is what I did last year that worked well:

I did a rough sketch of all my gardens giving the location and name of each perennial and importantly the relative positions of each to each other. But given my poor drawing skills I also marked each plant with its own hard white skinny plastic 8" stake. I obtained these from "Edible Arrangements" as they use these same stakes to hold their elaborate fruit trays together.

The stakes helped lots come the early spring as I knew exactly where to look for new growth of an emerging plant and where *not* to step in the spring.

This year for my herbs I actually collected wine and champagne corks from myself and a few friends. Drilled a little into the bottom and stuck dowel rods in. Painted the corks and wrote on them with sharpies. I'm told there is something I can spray them with to weatherize them so they don't deteriorate (for perennial herbs - annuals markers will just come inside). We'll see.
But a few things I just thought of... if anyone has a small laminater you could laminate little cards with names, info, pictures even and staple them to plastic sticks or something. Or putting the little info cards in seelable poly bags and stapling to a plastic stick. I bought 1000 little 2"x2" polybags from discountofficeitems.com for seed saving (I'll have polybags for the rest of my life). Link to all their polybags below. These guys are the cheapest for office supplies, too, by the way!

Here is a link that might be useful: Polybags @ Discount Office Items

I also use the mini blinds but I use the aluminum ones as they last longer. I also put the name on both sides and on the bottom (part I'm putting in the ground). That way if one side fades, the other is usually readable but the part in the ground doesn't fade at all. Yes it doesn't look too cool in the spring but once growing starts, you can't see them.

Thanks for all the great ideas. What a good resource for beginning gardeners! It is helpful to have tags in place are you're learning to ID plants in & out of season. I've also written when I've divided the plant on the tag. Ideally record that in a notebook, but when in the garden with mucky gloves you just get the job done and a pencil in the pocket, tool belt, or tool bucket is handy.

Remember to be careful if raking or spreading mulch to not catch and remove the above ground tag.
Plus teach your young garden visitors to not touch & collect the tags.

Keep a few colored tags to mark a plant to move or divide later. Use sharp scissors to cut them from colored plastic containers.

Thank you for all your wonderful ideas - so creative! I didn't realize that the writing on the label if kept underground would be preserved pretty well. Might be what I'm going to try next for X marks the spot purposes. Also the digital pictures is a good idea for general reference but I think the markers in the ground when I'm staring at something wondering whether or not I put it there is key!

Thanks again,
Amna