Methods of organization are an individual thing. The first thing I had to accept is that memory is fallible. After that, chaos is greatly reduced.
When I receive a box of plants, they generally go into water for at least a few hours, sometimes with a bit of liquid fertilizer, and I make out vinyl labels to match each plant. I write the plant name twice on each label, using #2 pencil above ground and Sharpie indelible marker below, along with the name of the vendor. I toss the labels in the water jug with the plants. It's essential to keep track of plant orders, so that if I or the vendor have mislabeled anything, I have a list of likely suspects to work with.
I buy
vinyl labels from
Horticultural Marketing and Printing in TX. I get at least 10 years out of them, unlike plastic labels, which usually dry and break inside of a year. Vinyl venetian blind slats are OK too, but are thinner, more easily damaged, and tend to stain, becoming hard to read.
