Plant labels - you know, those white sticks

[didireallysaythat]

So I use those white plastic sticks and a sharpie. And if I don't submerge the entire stick under the soil I can guarantee the writing with have faded in 2 months. Usually about the time I'd like to know what I planted.

Is it just me ? How does everyone do it ? I noticed Monty seems to get away with it (albeit using enormous white sticks - maybe they are better than the 10cm ones I have ?)

I use pencil on them, it seems to last better than pen.

Yy to pencil :)

Montys labels are always in his potting shed or greenhouse I think thats why they last
I use slate labels with white pencil or white labels with indelible pen they seem to last longer than the plants sometimes!

I am a fan of Sharpies and find they are the only pen that doesn't fade, although the label has to be bone dry when you write on it. I have some beautiful hand-crafted slate labels but have yet to use them. My gardening chum uses black plastic labels with silver pen and they look much nicer than the white ones.

I do think you need to use the biggest labels you can find, as the smaller ones get knocked or pulled out by cats, birds and other local wildlife.

My fade after a month or two in the greenhouse. We'll have to wait to see if he can tell his beet from his spinach in 3 months time...

This is the professional way I think:

global.dymo.com/enGB/Home/default.html

This is a cheapish one, but there must be others:

label-point.co.uk/embossers/dymo_junior_embossing_label_maker_1?gclid=CMCBzP3R3cQCFW3LtAodgF0AQg

That's a cheeky little sales pitch!

those white labels just get lost don't they. I was fannying around on pinterest yesterday looking for label inspiration.

I might be doing some poncy wood recycling and buying some waterproof markers .

They're fine in pots but not in open ground. I was given a garden gift voucher for my birthday and hadn't decided what to spend it on, maybe I will treat myself to some nice sturdy labels for outdoors.

Yes when I went looking for emerging plants today I found white label scattered by the squirrels so another issue is how to keep them in the ground at the site of the correct plant.

I have the opposite problem. I use a bog standard pencil to write on a cheapo white stick and I probably spent 5 minutes with an eraser on each stick trying to remove what I marked up last year!

there is a pencil called a chinacraft pencil (I think) which is supposed to be indelible

Pencil all the way - honestly, I tried recently to get them all clean again by sticking lots of white sticks in the cutlery bit of the dishwasher and nothing would shift my scribbles...