I go with gardenchik.... .as I've never found any markers that are really permanent. Cut the top and bottom out of cans, then cut the cans into strips about 1 and 1/2 inch wide. Turn under about one inch on the long end so you have a double thickness and punch a hole with a regular paper punch. Write with an old ball point using a magazine for a pad. The writing will be indented and will last for years. I use galvanized wire for a stake making a small sheperd's hook to keep the tag on. The only time I ever lose them is when "someone" helps me rake and rakes them out. OH.......almost forgot, my daughter used these and hers were disappearing. Proved to be a mistery solved when she noticed some of her tags up in a tree and later watched as a crow was pulling them out and hiding them up in the tree. LOL I've heard of crows stealing things before and now these! On other tags if you write with regular pencil the writing will last longer than any markers. I'm going to see if I can find the marker that Deee named.

Sharpies definitely don't hold up here in VA, even on the white plastic from cat litter or bleach jugs. The people who are praising them are also saying that they bury the tag, or turn it to face the ground. Grease pencil is most long-lasting, as long as you use black - blue (therefore green as well) and red are VERY fade-prone. It's true that the bleach-jug plastic is itself less degraded by sunlight than the milk jugs.

BTW The editors at the Instructables site just e-mailed me that this one is also being featured. Been up less than 24 hours. If I wasn't so humble I'd be impressed with myself.

I got the copper labels from Charley's greenhouse (website/catalog). Currently they only have the type that you stick in the ground, but I imagine they'll carry the smaller ones like mine again soon. I bet some of the big box hardware stores, and other nurseries carry them too. The patina is nice and makes them less (though not totally) obvious. I have a love-hate thing with labels. Part of me finds them intrusive so I do keep them to a minimum. Or at least try to. :) If I'm lazy, or out of the copper ones, I stick the plastic one deeeeeep in the soil so only its edge is visible on close inspection if I need help remembering a specific variety/cultivar (the genus and species names I've got memorized of course, but specific cultivars I often need help remembering for some plants where I've collected a ton and the differences are subtle). By the time the plastic label is gone, or broken, I've usually got the cultivar names memorized too, though not always. I like mdvaden's idea of cutting your own copper for labels. I may give that a try since Charley's doesn't have the type of labels I bought right now. If I did a better job of recording who is where, then I wouldn't need them, so that's more incentive for me to make a map or a spreadsheet. Take care and happy gardening, Grant