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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Labels for the garden

Labels, blah, I so dislike looking out at my garden and seeing all those labels. And yet, during the growing season, it's so nice when somebody wants to know what something is and there you have the name right at your finger tip.

Now that I'm potting up all these plants to sell, I needed a quick, cheap way to label the many pots. As in previous years, my solution has been to use mini blinds. I used to use old blinds that people donated to me but I've run out of those. Now I run to a discount store and buy the largest size for the cheapest price.

The first step is to cut off all of the cords.

This is the size I bought. They were $5.00, the next size was almost twice the price and was only a few inches larger so I went with these.

Since they are 36" long, it was easy to figure out that I cut get three foot long labels out of each piece of plastic.

All cut up in under ten minutes, I had 218 pieces of mini-blind markers. Not bad!


When it comes to writing on the labels I have a number of different products. The sharpie marker doesn't last a whole season. The Nursery marking pen holds much longer than the sharpie but I haven't seen them for sale around here.

The winner though is the pencil. It is less bold, a little harder to read but it will never ever fade. Also, the markers are have fat tips and are hard to read too while the finer point of the pencil is easier to write with.

Do you label your plants? Can you recommend a marker?

6 comments:

Hà Xuân said...

I need labels for my plants quickly, too. I should search my junk for mini blinds. I used to cut up plastic containers but I've run out of these.
Yours look very neat, Melanie. Your buyers will like them a lot, I bet.

Tatyana@MySecretGarden said...

What a great idea! Love it! Thank you!

Joanne said...

yet another good tip good luck with the plant sales.

our friend Ben said...

Great idea, Melanie! Your customers are going to be so grateful!!!

CiNdEe's GaRdEn said...

I like your idea with the mini blinds. I bought some plastic labels last year at the nursery so I could label my violets and my semps. I used my label maker to print water proof labels and stick them on the plastic marker. These lasted a year and the next year I put a piece of clear tape over the label for more protection. My hand writing is terrible so I had to do it that way to make it look nice.
Your way is much easier!!
CiNdEeS' GaRdEn

Melanie Chopay said...

Ha Xuan, we have a website here where people offer up their junk. Two years ago I was able to pick up 12 sets of mini blinds for free.

Cindee, I have to work so hard so my handwriting is nice and neat :-)

Thanks to all of you for your good luck wishes. I've got a lecture first thing tomorrow morning with one of our second grade classes and then I'll be in the garden for a full 5 hours before having to clean up and see my daughter perform in a play. Whew!