Labels for pots

Any ideas welcome for labelling pots. After a few days the sticky labels that I have been using come away from the pots. Can anyone advise what they use for the best way of labelling?

 

I use plastic labels. I get through a lot, so I buy them by the box of 500 or so. Being mean I buy the shortest ones and write small!

Also, being mean, I only label one plant. I bought a bulk lot of coloured plastic labels (about 6 colours), so I put a coloured label in the labelled-pot and then just a coloured one in all the others. Its obvious to me if there are two plants with Red labels and they have completely different leaves, so its only there as a clue where to look for the pot with the named label. On occasion when I have more varieties than colours I double up - so a red+green label, for example. When they are planted out the colour labels are put back into the recycle pot

Folk use cut-up yoghurt pots, sadly for the quantity I need I don't have time for that, and we don't eat enough yoghurt! but that might suit you perhaps?

Get a good indelible marker too (or a soft 4B pencil). Marker pens that fade in the sun in a couple of months are as good as useless of course! having said that when I plant out I always put the label with the writing side facing away from the sun to increase the time before the it fades.

 

Thanks Kristen - very informative. You've certainly given me some good tips that I will put into practice. Last night I was potting up 5 different varieties of sweet peas and before I had finished the first labels were already coming off. Colour coding sounds perfect.

 

Soaking in thin bleach will clean permanent marker writing off, enabling re-use of plastic labels. I do something similar to Kristen's coloured labels by using different colour/shape pots for the same variety of plant and only label one of them plus write on one of the pots just in case that single label goes astray (which can and will happen and was probably how I managed to plant cordon rather than bush tomatoes in my first floor window boxes one year)

 

These are the ones I bought. At a glance there are other choices on eBay, so no idea if this one is still good value. I bought 100-each of 5 or 6 colours

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380172721220

 

Ace!

I've noticed, increasingly, that the plant tag "loops", which are normally around a branch of the plant, are being stapled to the pot instead. I can pull the label/staple off the pot easily enough, and then attach it to plant/stick when I plant it out, so that works OK for me too. Those sorts of labels are cheap to buy too. Dunno if they will print on a laser printer? they used to come on continuous rolls that went through printers that took fan-fold paper. Dunno if they still exist? so perhaps they are on A4 sheets these days.

 

I would agree with Kristen - I use a lot of coloured labels. There are many different ways you can use coloured coding. For instance I don't write any labels for my Echiums - as the leaves are quite distinctive, I just use a different coloured label for each of the 6 different types I have. That way it saves writing and I can spot exactly what the plant is from several feet away.

I also sometimes put a red label into the pot of anything that is not hardy. Its a constant reminder that it needs winter protection, and its also a way of learning/remembering with new plants - because the indicator is always visible.

 

Similar tack: I've been round the garden with my coloured labels marking a number of things:

Plants in the Red border than need moving to the Blue border (and vice versa). Blue label needs moving to the Blue border

I have also labelled things in the Exotic border than need to come in for the winter ("traffic lights" system) :

• Must come in before first frost
• Can wait until frosted
• Can wait until risk of getting wet & cold feet

and then whereabouts in the conservatory it will be housed - so that like-things are adjacent:

• Needs to be +5C
• Needs warmer temperatures (by conservatory wall) - +0C
• Needs to be bone dry
• Needs to be very dry
• Needs to be near door to put out early in the Spring

so hopefully I will have an easier time next Spring when the conservatory is chocker-block and I'm trying to juggle things around!

 

P.S. Just remembered: in case of cock-up where I'm not sure if a pot has Plant-A or Plant-B in it I put one of each coloured labels in the pot, but upside down (pointy end sticking out) to indicate "uncertainty"

Anything, it would seem, to avoid actually having to write on a label!

 

Coloures label systems can work vey well - but the dog next door does like to come into the garden and collect the labels.

 

I'll tell you what works brilliant as labels... Cut up a white plastic milk bottle into strips the size you need. Scissors and a marker pen is all you need. I've also used the same type of milk bottles as small watering-cans for plants in the shed. Just drill holes as small as you like in the top and he-presto.
... cheers.

 

I found this idea on one of our threads GA....Sorry can't remember whos brilliant idea it was..but if you happen to have an old venetion(SP) blind knocking about cut it up and use that

 

Twas I

Still got 5k labels left and twenty more slats :-)

Jack McH

 

Just out of curiosity is he a spaniel? only my spaniel would do exactly the same thing, he loves bits of plastic to chew!!

Val