Tuesday, June 5, 2012

My biggest pet peeve

The plastic tags in landscaping. It killllllls me. This office building had four of these planted and they left the tag in every single one.


I didn't remove them but I was very tempted. Lately I've been snapping a photo of my plants with their nursery tag and then uploading the photo to a folder in my Google/Picasa account. Then I throw the tag away. Anybody have a better system?

18 comments:

  1. DO IT! :) That is beyond annoying.

    I have no suggestions for good plant labeling. I should get better at this because I can really only remember about 3 plants we have in our yard...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I often see them when people have planted window boxes with annuals. They're not coming back! You don't need to keep the tag. Sheesh.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree...ticky, tacky! I actually save all of my tags in a nursery pot in my office. I'm don't really know why...I never actually look at them! Well, that's not true...occasionally, I'll look at them to make sure they actually are growing WAY bigger than the tags said they would.
    Norm actually mentions frequently that I should label the plants in our garden, but, amazingly, I can tell you exactly what any plant in my garden is. I can't remember people's names to save my life, by I rarely forget a plant ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. If we're being honest, most of mine are in a pot in the garage. :) I don't know why I bother because you're right: they always get bigger than they say they will!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I plan on doing a blog post about my plants, then pinning them in a Pinterest folder.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That's a good idea. I've realized I do a lot of looking back through blog entries to figure out the names of plants.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I've started taping them in my garden notebook. Doesn't that sound efficient and well-organized? Truthfully, I like putting them in there because I never fill up the damn notebooks and this uses up extra pages...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey, whatever works for you! I threw away a bunch, including the tag for a viburnum I planted and I'd *really* like to know what variety it is.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I hope you don't hate me for leaving all my tags on my tomatoes and peppers. Although taking a picture of them & then tossing the tag is a much better idea.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Veggies are different! I leave the tags for my tomatoes, though I tuck them next to the edge of the planter so no one can see them. But for landscaping? Totally different story.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am SO with you on this! My good neighbors, the ones with great plant taste (not the ones whose lawn you backed over) leave their tags in the ground next to the plant and they even leave the ones that are looped over the branches of shrubs. TACKY!!! I kills me every time I see it.

    I like your method...that way you have a visual record of what it looked like when you planted it too. I go the notebook route, just tape them in and make a note of where it is in the garden. Sometimes I even remember to write down if I move it, or if it died, but not always. (in fact not usually)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Still working on it...tried the copper ones that you engrave with a ballpoint pen; too hard to read and even harder to find as the plant grows. The wooden ones fail to hold up for even a season. Everything else on the market is, as you point out, TACKY. Your idea sounds good, but I hate to delegate yet more of my time to the computer. Guess I will just have to continue teasing my memory banks with all this arcane info. I'll forget the names of my relatives but still be babbling about Osteospermum fruticosum in my dotage.

    ReplyDelete
  13. HammeringOurWayHomeJune 6, 2012 at 7:16 AM

    Red faced, I admit, I am guilty !!!!! haha I'm a total plant doink and 1) can't remember what anything is, & 2) use those little sun/water tips on the back of those sticks. But you have shamed me into throwing them away from here on out.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Well just keep in mind that if you leave them in the ground some self-righteous bitch like me might remove them for you!

    No, but really you get a pass because you're building a house from scratch. You can leave those tags in if you want. :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. That seems fair; I like a lot of my plants better than some of my relatives. Better to remember their names. :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. Oh, eek! I keep mine in. I had no clue it was dorky.

    ReplyDelete
  17. It's not empirically dorky, it's just my pet peeve. :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. I'm with you, tags look silly and distracting. But I'm afraid to toss any of my tags due to the cultural info and slight jog to my memory they provide, so they hang out in a box, with crumbling rubber bands loosely grouping them. My so-called "system" is a database with all the plant info, and a "haul" blog post, for visual reference. The only problem is when I have two plants that look similar: I have at least two sets of plants I can't figure out...

    ReplyDelete