Lol, I can relate! I don't have paper journals but I have electronic ones on two different sites. I start out dutifully in January recording my thoughts for the garden that season but inevitably by the time spring comes I'm way to busy actually outside gardening to put anything down at all. When summer hits it takes me hours to download, sort and edit all of the hundreds of pictures I take almost daily so that I'm too tired afterwards to journal. This year I decided not to even bother starting because I know I won't keep it up to date.

My hubby is a built-in garden journal, with a infinite-repertoire of robot-commands: "Trim those bushes, I can't see when I back my car out." Or "Trim the tree, they poke pedestrians' eyes." I think he's getting even with my telling him to cut the lawn.

Strawberryhill - sounds familiar - my first recent endeavor in the garden was using an electric hedge clipper on a small hedge of "Gourmet Popcorn", after my DH told me he almost hit a pedestrian coming out of the driveway because it was too high! Our City also nags me if a branch of a tree or a rose cane sticks out into the sidewalk too much - both of these are good, because it gets me out there looking around.

Re journals - never even tempted. The only thing I try to keep is a very scratched over ragged list of who my 100+ roses are and where they are. This has saved me a few times - like the time I ordered 5 new tea roses, planted two of them, put the other three in large pots, and then three years later couldn't remember which one was who. The ones in pots had gone on strike and were refusing to bloom. When I finally located them all on my list, I was able to rescue the three from their pots and plant them in appropriate places, and locate the other two in the garden where they had been overgrown by rampaging hollyhocks & four o'clocks. The best thing about my list was that when I started I had over a dozen "mystery rose" notations, because they were old roses that I inherited, and I had no idea who they were. Due to the help of people on this forum, and folks at the Celebration of Roses and elsewhere, my "mystery" list is down to a couple of roses!

Jackie

I've been using a monthly planner for the past few years--great for keeping track of all sorts of rose related info--not just what I did, but our garden's weather record as well.

I too get lazy or bored and stop writing in the journal. It is useful and interesting though to keep track of weather, blooming times, level of die-back on the roses, disease, and other details in order to plan and design the garden better. Maybe I'll start journalizing this spring.

For my birthday last year I got a really neat Canon digital camera, and the old lenses from my older Canon fit them! I held out on this as felt my old camera was super expensive, but it has been worth it, takes great pictures with no effort, just point and shoot, and it shows the date picture was taken; this has been my journal, lets me know where I am and hopefully where I need to go.

I created a monthly calendar instead and use it to jot down what gardening products I bought and how much they cost. I also put down a note when I feed my roses and whether the roses are blooming or looking sick.

For example:

10th January 2012
Rose Fertiliser $9.94
Trigger $2.77

12th January 2012
Sprayed Fungicide on CA, CdC.
No fl. buds.
Laguna leaves - infested with mites.

The purpose of doing this is I want to see whether the products I bought really works and I also want to keep track of my expenditure.

I think a monthly calendar is much easier for me to keep track of what's happening. It provides an overview unlike a journal, which contains too many pages, and sometimes I get lost or forget what I did on a certain day.

Campanula my journal writing history is almost exactly like yours. I can really see the good of it but I'm just not that organized. I do have all the roses entered on HMF.

Campanula, even a "snarky rant" written by you is bound to be entertaining. What a shame that you are no more disciplined than the rest of us at keeping up with a journal. ;-)

I, too, have received those journal books with lovely covers and tempting blank pages - only to fizzle out on the whole thing by a couple of weeks into each season. The latest one I started actually has entries from several years. I just mark the date at the top and start with whatever thoughts and info I want to record. I no longer have any delusions that I will write the whole year through. If I can save some ideas for future use, that's all I'm after. I have actually gone back to read past entries, brief or spotty as they may be, and been grateful for what I DID record. That's the best I can do, I guess.

I keep it up quite a bit longer, but it starts to get sparse as the year winds down. I mix a few personal things in as well. My favorite is the Standard Diary Daily Reminder series with a full page for each day of the year. Most days are just a few lines, some days not at all, but there are days I want to write a full page.

Rosefolly

oh yes, rosefolly, and i bet i can guess just what those days of much writing were like. Sometimes, i feel quite inspired and wish i had a less prosaic soul. however, i do use words like luminous, crystalline and ethereal a lot, occasionally getting really carried away when transcendent and numinous appear. The spelling is a bit dodgy though.

Mine is not a journal per se but a compendium of lists. Naturally I have a list of all the roses I own. I also have a list of all the roses I've discarded, and a list of roses I'd like to buy in the future. I write down when I've bought each rose and from whom. I also have a rose location list, broken down into different areas (front garden, dining room, front triangle, back rectangle etc.) All these lists are updated when I add/subtract roses, and I've found all this information to be very useful at various times. Also, it just makes me feel more secure that I have everything written down in case I have a bout of amnesia or just get more forgetful as the years fly by.

The great thing about refusing to have a regular garden journal with pesky facts like:

"6 inches of rain today. all seedlings appear to be drowned" or " Tripped over wheelbarrow stuck in mud, gashed left temple" and "slugs ate all dahlia shoots AGAIN!!!"

is that when in the dark of the next winter and you're looking at pictures of luminous numinous bloominus, all you are able to remember are the lovely parts and have none of the actual factuals to spoil your fun.

Note to self: Take more pictures this summer. :)

I have kept a garden journal in a Word Document file since 2002. I originally started with handwritten journals, but opted to switch to a computer document because it allows me to search for information without having to scan through pages and pages of gardening notes I make. I generally enter information that I believe will help me in future months or years, e.g., when I sow seeds and when they germinate. I also jot down when the weather is extreme or unusual and, of course, always mention when plants are performing particularly well or particularly badly as I tend to "re-write" history regarding plant performance. Entries in the journal vary from daily (in the spring/early summer)to 3 or 4 times a week later in the year.
I also take a lot of photos which is, to me, the only way to accurately see how the garden (especially roses) looks during each season. Since I keep adding and removing plants and shrubs from the garden, a photo is the only way I can truly see the effect of each season's look. The photos are maintained in folders entitled "Garden 200?, 200?,200?, etc.". I maintain a separate word document listing my roses, daylilies and iris varieties that I have in my garden. It really is very easy to maintain and I love it when I can just search for something like Archduke Charles and find when I acquired it, and any other notations regarding its performance in the garden. I am not an organized person in any other way, but my gardening journal is something I am pleased with.
Molly

I have often thought about starting a garden journal, but I have never gotten around to actually doing it. Listing when and from whom I have obtained roses has always seemed like a good plan as well. Molly's idea of a Word Document seems like an easy enough way to start, even though I usually like to have paper copies of most things (books, for example). I like the idea of being able to do a search for something you've written in the past. I do take lots of photos and am often amazed how much things can grow in a relatively short period of time - photos are a great way to document garden changes.
Kathy

No journaling of any kind in my life. Oh I know I'm supposed to, it's supposed to be good for you, but ... never even get to acquiring a journal. I'm not good at doing a lot of things I'm supposed to be doing. Like cooking real food, or washing the dishes. I don't see any point to blogging either, don't know how people find the time and energy for that. Then again, I'm here on this site ...

I do however keep daily track of precipitation and am known to regale friends and coworkers with exactly how much rain we got the day before, or how long it's been since it last rained.

And when I had a larger rose garden I had a spreadsheet listing the roses and tracking disease incidence from year to year, and a website for the rose garden where I posted photos and the spreadsheet. I only have a very few roses now, and no website anymore, but I do have my roses listed on HelpMeFind.

I keep a large -- very large -- table. It's organized by location -- rose garden, patio, etc., and includes all the usual stuff you'd expect about height, width, bloom time, water needs, etc. There is also ample room for notes -- which often comes up as what Jeri calls "your mileage may vary" -- how plants in my garden perform differently from what the little plant tag from the nursery says is supposed to happen. That's pretty much as "diary" as I get, but it does help a lot when I'm convinced that the camellias are coming out "early," -- only to discover from my notes that they bloomed at exactly the same time last year -- and the year before that.

Kay

Great thread, campanula, since it reminds me that I should organize stuff better. Mariannese, I also ordered Crown Princess Margareta and Teasing Georgia - I saw a picture of CPM posted here and fell in love with its ruffles. They don't make silk roses with ruffles so I'll go for the real stuff.

Hi Reg_pnw, like you, I also keep track of when it's going to rain. Every year I make the mistake of wasting hours watering the garden, then it rained for 24 hours straight the next day!! I use my kid's hair as a predictor of rain: if her hair is curlier than normal, then it's going to rain. It's about same accuracy as the weather forecast. If someone know of a better way to predict when it's going to rain, please let me know.

I've had a journal for 12 years, but my writing in it has trickled down to occasional notes in recent times. I like to record when (and which) first roses bloom, major changes, when spring comes, how cold was winter, etc. I wish I wrote in it more regularly and made it more lively and interesting to read.

I have a separate spreadsheet where I keep track of my roses, when and where obtained, and notes on disease resistance, fragrance, etc. That way I don't clutter my journal every time I plant something or shovel prune something, and I can see what is current without going back many years. I also have a hand-drawn plan of my garden with labels on roses and other major trees and shrubs to keep track of what I planted where. It is drawn to scale in pencil so I can erase and change names when needed. :-)

Hello, All:
I use the Neil Sperry gardening calendar and have done for 2 decades. Neil is an A&M-trained horticulturist who has had a radio program for 30+ years in the DFW Meteroplex and now has a monthly newsletter for all of Texas as well as the calendars and magazines. He's our Texas guru - the university research antithesis of the local, but also popular organic 'Dirt Doctor'.

The calendars have a square for each day where I pencil in the temps and rain or whatever and the item(s) I'm focusing on that day. Of course, on busy gardening days I have to use a sort of shorthand, and for detailed analysis, I use a writing tablet of some sort and I save those. I like to go back years later and read one of my monthly reports from a garden walk-around. When I do that, I just jot down everything that occurs to me as I walk whether it's an observation of a plant or a note to myself to do better next time.

What I really like about using the garden calender is that I can pick up a calendar for whatever year I want to refer to and turn to that month and see what was happening and compare it to what's happening in the current year. I can see when the ice storms hit and what damage was done and I can see how long a drought lasted and what I did about it. I can see when I sprayed for nutgrass and when it's time to spray again or when I started using Ornamec on the bermuda that crept into the liriope. I note when I took a tree out and what difference it made and how well the plants did with more sun or whether I had to rearrange the plants or replace them. I make a note of what kind of mulch I use and when I order bulk compost and how much. I can look back and remind myself what varieties I tried and when I lost them. : (

My calendars turn out to be kind of a table like Kay uses, but w/o as much detail and organized by month and day instead of location in the garden.

I started getting the calendars because they came with my N.S. Texas Gardens magazine subscription, but as years went by, the calendars have come to mean much more to me than the magazine. I now want more detailed info than I can get in the magazine, and it's so easy to locate it online.

I keep intending to punch holes in the calendars and put them in a binder and make a kind of book. (They're all the same size so this would be possible.) I've saved a couple of oversized binders for this, but I never can decide if I want to order the book by month or by year. As soon as I decide that I want to order my book by months (like having chapters of Januarys or Februarys, etc.) so I can flip through and see what happened in all years in the winter or summer or spring, I then realize that I really like being able to grab a calendar and see the progress of the garden from month to month for that particular year. Oh well.

At the bottom of each month of calendar squares, Neil lists must-do garden tasks for particular areas of Texas as well as cautions and other reminders. This is not so valuable now that I've grown as a gardener and don't need the reminders. Now I'd rather have more space to write. But all in all, I'm really glad I have the calendars and have kept records. Here's the location of the calendars - I put the info in as a link, but haven't done that before and don't know if I'm doing it right.
http://www.neilsperry.com/store/neil-sperrys-texas-gardening-calendar/neil-sperrys-2012-texas-gardening-calendar.html

I've enjoyed learning what you all do or don't do. It probably reflects our various personalities and the business of our lives, and I feel I know you a little better. Lou

Here is a link that might be useful: Neil Sperry's Texas Gardening Calendar

I do my blog. Since it is public I sometimes record things I need to do but don't want to, in order to embarrass myself into getting the task completed. Works for me! :)

yes, I do and put in nearly everything that I do. It is very handy for me to see a rose is putting out a bunch of new growth/buds and check to see what worked and how long it took. So when winter company comes I can see what I need to do so that the garden is in full bloom when they arrive.
I've recently (this month) started a separate garden expense journal, noting all garden expenses. It is a bit scary but part of my new year's resolution to stop wasting money.

I began in 2000 with a five year book which is my favorite format. Each page is one date with years listed one after the other down the page. That way you can see what happened on that date over a 5 year period and also follow a single year by flipping the pages. Also it does not leave room to be overly expansive in descriptions. I never write every day and so there is some room, drawing arrows, to write more in the wrong place but the arrows and balloons (like cartoons) keep clear what happened when. I never ever include costs. The information is what bloomed or was planted or died when and occasionally germination or rooting times. Only if the weather is extraordinary does it merit mention. Sometimes in, say, year three I want to remember to do something on a certain date in year 4 and so place a directive in the appointed date a year ahead of time. I never said that I always do them. This note repository (much too abbreviated to merit "journal") is supplemented by "want" lists on the spare pages of the book and maps. I tend to do things in batches and so I'll have a "peony year" or "snowdrop year" and buy a great number of plants in one genus. Making a map helps a lot in later years to figure out what I have done. The maps are kept folded inside the cover of the note book. Finding which book is relatively easy. Some of the note books are one year because when I finished my 5 year book I could not find another. I now use bound business journals (cost about $30.00) and divide the pages into 5 sections and across the page edges so that they can be seen when the book is closed. Then I put the proper year between the lines so I can see them at a glance while the book is closed. I am now on the second book of these. The last few years the notes have become very sketchy with few entries. Still I am grateful for the ones I have. I once read that a gardener's journal is his most valuable tool and although I would not say THAT, it can be very useful.

Cath

And I save plant orders and invoices. Each year is stapled together with a sheet on top with the year at the top of the page and each nursery listed with the total amount spent, including shipping, at the right and the date ordered at the left. Usually the date received is also entered at the left. Then the amounts are totaled and I know how much I have spent for the year. Since most of the ordering is done in a batch in the Spring it is recorded after the last Spring order arrives and then is chucked in the same drawer year after year. If a Fall order is placed, that is stapled at the back of the packet and added at the bottom of the front page. This way I know the grand plant total for the year and try to stay within a certain (large amount). I do have more roses than shoes. It is close though because for about 25 years I bought very few roses. I do not keep track of tools nor fertilizer as they are maintenance, a necessary household expense. I am not going to fall in love with a shiny new tool nor a flashy fertilizer. I consider the plants my one big fat indulgence, er interest.

Because the packets are all in one place and because I almost always remember what nursery I ordered each plant from, I can find when I planted something (if not findable in the note book) if I need to... a little cumbersome but doable. I do not check the cost. Once the money is spent it is spent.

Cath

I really agree with Lou's comment about everyone's personalities and lives expressing itself through their journaling or lack of it. It's always seemed to me as I've watched the interchanges of all of us is there are different personalities who value different things. The science minded are driven bonkers by the artsy types sometimes.

Gardening is a blend though, of the need to be be factual and the expression of a creative spirit. I'm reminded I should be more methodical; I tend to look at the plants this year and see what they need now and not worry so much about patterns of trends from last year. Besides, all of the fall and spring and winter can be summed up by "it rained today." But see, that's me. There is no right or wrong, particularly here, I don't think. But I am not a master gardener in any sense.

I've read about the rigorous training gardeners in England at one time underwent - there is no such training here, I don't think. I met a young lady the other day who has a degree in horticulture. We started talking about plants and I realized she didn't know the difference between a determinate or indeterminate tomato. I am saddened by that. But really encouraged by those of you that take your gardening and recording seriously; I should be more like you. So thanks.