If you don't have a paint marker they will fade. Paint markers will fade to eventually, but they last about 3 years.

I use Pawpaw markers and a Brother PC 2430 and LOVE it! I have had problems with paint pens, blind markers, etc.

I tried using a map but I am bad about squeezing a new one in here and there. So the marker is best for me.

I have been trying to make my markers first before planting. Before I would think I would remember what was planted where but I would be forgetful and have to wait until bloom time again

What's a Pawpaw marker, Teresa?

Here is a link. It is a small family company. They ship very fast and take Paypal. I buy the ones with Stainless steel legs.

http://everlastlabel.com/

I just ordered 100 of them last night. I got an email from them this morning that the package had already shipped. They always are really quick getting their orders out. No shipping charges either.

My experience with the plastic tags is that they become fragile exposed to sunlight. The ones that Jan is using, I find to be particularly fragile due to the thin stem. I've been using the metal markers for 25 years, and other than my own klutzy moments when I step on them, they last for a long time. And when I step on them, I just bend them back. Can't do that with a plastic marker... My chickens also like to pull the plastic ones out of the pots

I just started using the Brother P-Touch last year, after having used a soft pencil all the years prior. It was getting harder for me to read black on grey without taking the marker out and putting my glasses on... The soft lead does last for years and years, but the black on white tape is much easier to read. It is pricey though.. I just paid $28 at Staples for a replacement... You can get it much cheaper online... but I really needed it right then....

I use labels similar to that -- I get mine at Kincaid Gardens. Spendy -- but they last virtually forever. Except when the Hub backs his truck over them...............

I use the white, outdoor laminated tape. I have poor eyesight and love the contrast of blk lettering on the white tape.

I got a hundred for $36... I think it's pretty reasonable. I do get a slightly smaller type that they call rose markers. I find the kind with the plates that you slide on, tend to slip down. However, the larger plate is easier to get some of the longer names on, but I'm going for continuity in the garden, and keeping it the same.

Henhouse said:I got a hundred for $36... I think it's pretty reasonable. I do get a slightly smaller type that they call rose markers. I find the kind with the plates that you slide on, tend to slip down. However, the larger plate is easier to get some of the longer names on, but I'm going for continuity in the garden, and keeping it the same.

Hmmmm. I might go to that extent if I was "exhibiting" my iris in a show or competition, but for the
garden, I use the Plastic ones that you write on with a permanent marker, which really don't suffer
from being exposed to the sunshine.

Reading the plant marker discussion with great interest...I've purchased copper markers, zinc markers, metal markers with tall legs, markers with short legs,
and now plastic markers that I'm told won't last. I have over 300 cultivars...this can get expensive! And time-consuming. Maps are one answer.

omg! I just had an idea!! I'm a potter - with clay and kilns etc.... I can make a marker template, make multiples, glaze them and write the name of the
iris with cobalt or iron oxide and water, fire them - and they will last forever!!! Porcelain or any white clay would work.... Scraps!

The other problem with the plastic markers is that they're easily lost. They inadventantly get raked up, dug up, relocated by animals or "helpful" humans. What I've found is the thicker, less rigid types of plastic markers work the best. The thin, stiff ones will degrade in a couple of years. I've got plenty of plastic shards around the property.

Maps and photographic records are necessary when you have a lot of varieties.

I saw one garden that had the plants all marked with clay flower pots. Some 4", but most were the 6" size. The pots were inverted , and placed in front of the plant. The "gardener had painted ( quite beautifully!) the name of the plant / hybridizer, etc. ,on the pot, with a "pearl "colored paint, that was sort of "metal flake" ( I'm sure one of those "paint pens" would work ), and the pot, when inverted in it's 'place', covered a metal tag, staked to the ground with about 3"-4" of "stake" sticking out of the ground......a "second line of defense" against 'losing" a cultivar, and, it helped keep the pots where they belonged. They had only a hundred or so, iris cultivars, but probably another 200 "other" plants, all marked this way. It looked very nice, but, it wouldn't be cheap !

I find that plastic in any form does not last in the southern sun. It becomes brittle and any type of marker uses except carbon pencil fades and must be redone. I buy the heavy duty rose markers and write on them in pencil. so far so good. I also map. If I have two of the same cultivar I do not like to make two metal markers so I use one flexible plastic one and shove it in below soil level. It seems to hold up much better without exposure to the sun. A friend with a large iris garden hammers PVC pipe into the ground near her clumps with the name written in paint on the north side to protect the letters from the suns rays. she says that method lasts for many years. I do not use that method because I am need to get into the beds and do not want to trip and fall on a piece of PVC pipe.

I thought permanent marker would last a long time on plastic markers but was surprised to find they faded over the winter. Pencil, while harder to read actually lasts for a very long time. Which is why we used it in archaeology forever and a day to mark things. I have heard burying the name works well but then you have pull the tags out to read them. Someday I guess I will get more permanent markers but they are pricey.

Permanent markers fade over winter and paint pens fade in two or three years here.

We use the metal markers & Brothers tape. Lasts a long time, but deer & clumsy humans can move the markers. However when I lost chubby Cheeks several years ago, I ordered another this year, went looking for the marker & used it for the new plant.

I also use metal markers and Brothers tape. When it happens that I lose a cultivar, I toss the plate -- the holders are still fine. And the plates are relatively inexpensive to replace.

That being said -- this year I have adopted a new strategy. Rather than use a metal marker for new plants -- I use a Brothers tape label with the name only on a plant marker cut from an old venetian blind slat. This is much faster to make because I eliminate a bunch of information that I put on the permanent marker -- and if a plant doesn't make it, there is only a little time lost and very little expense lost.

Mary Ann, I'll let you know how they work out here, too.

janwax said:Reading the plant marker discussion with great interest...I've purchased copper markers, zinc markers, metal markers with tall legs, markers with short legs,
and now plastic markers that I'm told won't last. I have over 300 cultivars...this can get expensive! And time-consuming. Maps are one answer.

omg! I just had an idea!! I'm a potter - with clay and kilns etc.... I can make a marker template, make multiples, glaze them and write the name of the
iris with cobalt or iron oxide and water, fire them - and they will last forever!!! Porcelain or any white clay would work.... Scraps!

Jan, like this....
I will be loading the kiln tomorrow.


The ones I make are ceramic and will break if I step on them...

Mary Ann, I had wondered about that. Years ago I marked V. blinds with a p. marker and they would fade so.

The only problem I have with my Brother labeler is it seems to waste a lot of tape between names. It spits out almost a blank inch!! What is with that? I am sure there is a way to change the settings some how.

I have also found that my tape is almost 1/2 price at Amazon instead of Staples