Barbalee, I agree with everyone on their careful methods, and now it's time for the quintessential OCD procrastinator to give her two cents worth...(it's like peeling back an onion with me)
I do keep a list on a spreadsheet, very much like everyone else, and I do have my list here, on this site, that I can print any time into an e-file, along with a hard copy, which is convenient bc of the photos. At first, I used the plastic markers, but I eventually realized that a more durable label would need to be used, as my list of daylilies grew.
Now, I'm not gonna lie, I don't always have the permanent tags at the ready, when I plant my new daylilies, so I make absolutely sure that the vendor's tag stays on every daylily until it literally goes in the ground, and, if a metal tag isn't ready, I then use a landscape "staple" to secure the vendor's tag to the ground, by the plant, until the permanent tag can go in. I just thread it through the hole of the vendor tag. Most of the vendor tags are sturdy enough to withstand critter abuse and the weather for quite a while, actually, and the staples are long enough to stay in the ground for the duration, avoiding displacement by weather and critters.
I prefer to use the metal labels for permanent ID bc it's a logical choice for my no-nonsense, do-it-right-the-first-time M.O. They're not so easy for the critters to dig up, well, at least not critters that are the size of a cat and smaller! If a daylily is going to move to a different location, I have a roll of that stretchy, plastic neon stuff to mark and wrap on the roots until it reaches its new home in the ground. I also use that tape for labelling my trades.
I know that this "armchair quarterback" answer doesn't solve your issue, so really, if you have a list of everything, perhaps using three sources for photos of each daylily, including the American Hemorocallis Society, due to variations in color on devices, etc., might help in combination with help from the experts on this sight....good luck, my friend
