Do you ever find yourself scratching your head wondering “What the heck is this plant that’s growing in my garden?” only to remember that it was one your mother-in-law gave you for Christmas that you felt obligated to plant? The name escapes you, for the time-being anyway, but you do recognise the flower and that awkward scent.
If you leave your plant names to memory there’s a good chance that one day you’ll find yourself forgetting a few. And who can blame you? If you live on a normal suburban block you probably have a couple hundred plants in your garden so it’s quite possible to forget the odd one or two.
What’s more embarrassing is that you only forget the name when you’re showing your visitors around –
“There’s the gardenia jasminoides we planted last spring next to our hellebores niger. Don’t you love the contrast?”
“Yes. Just gorgeous. And what’s that plant in the front?”
“That’s…um…yes, I can’t remember off the top of my head. Funny, I only planted it last week.”
For those fastidious gardeners who keep a journal, this is probably not a scenario you would experience. However, for those a little less organised, like myself, there are garden markers. Plant labels that can easily identify what’s growing where.
I’ve often considered labelling my plants in some form but never quite found the best way to go about it. Sure, there’s an abundance of products available and even ideas on how to make your own. But the reality is that most garden markers look downright gaudy at best.
If I’m investing my hard-earned money into creating a beautiful garden the last thing I want in front of my plants is a plastic label with black texta. No, I want something a little more…beautiful!
Then I came across these copper plant markers that allow you to etch the plant names (and any other information you desire – ie. planting date, latin name etc) directly into the copper. It doesn’t really matter if you have bad writing or not, they will still come up looking a treat.
And while most packs of plant markers come in packets of 10 and are seemingly expensive you won’t need to label every plant but just the ones that are focussed on the most – or the ones you regularly forget.