I keep a 5-6 column table in Open Office format.

Have the plants listed under major classes (teas, HPs, whatever)

NAME INTRO DATE/BREEDER COLOR PROVENANCE
PARENTAGE/NOTES

Single spaced in cells, ~size 10-11 pt. font.

Sounds a bit tedious, but I find it enjoyable, & it's easy to keep updated once the main stuff is typed up. Very helpful reference. Update it spring & fall & print out the sheets. Nice to share with swapping pals, so they know what I've got & who it's from.

For tags, I like the aluminum wire-ons that are embossible with an ordinary pen--cost only 25-30 cents each & never fade.

On the tags I put the name, class, intro date, provenance & date acquired, like:

Coronado
1961 HT V (for Vintage) 13 (2013)

or
Mme. Laurette Messime
1887 China Cham(blees) (20)02

Works for me. Also keep a messy spiral gardening/roses notebook that I scribble stuff in. Biggest help has been reserving a full page for each month. I write down new plants (with proper names), who I got it from, when I planted various seeds, fertilized, etc.
Also use it to keep addies & swap info from plant pals.

Working in a new zone, & at my age, the old memory is too unreliable. It's been very helpful to have a reference for when we fertilized the fruit trees, planted new potatoes, set out tomatoes, what I hauled home from the latest plant swap & who gave me what, what I need to take cuttings of & who wants them (often months down the road), etc, etc.

I just have a simple notebook in which I list all my roses, all the ones I've tossed or given away, and the locations of the individual roses, with headings like front garden, front triangle, driveway, side garden etc. I also have a (somewhat incomplete) list of which roses I got where and the date I acquired them. I have a list of roses I'd like to have in the future, of which many have been crossed off as I've either acquired them or changed my mind about them, often thanks to information I've gleaned on this forum. My garden is simple, I don't do seeds or propagate roses or anything more esoteric than plopping plants in the ground after I buy them. I also have a list of roses that can be seen by clicking on my name, which I've had to update umpteen times, even though I'm sure no one ever sees the list.

Ingrid

I have a nothing-fancy SimpleText file, with roses I have grouped by class, with year of intro, where I got my plant, and its status ("planted", "gifted to..." or "dead" -- blank means still in a pot). This set-up is repeated for any I have "on-order", and again for any I'm thinking about for "future possibilities." I added size and growth-habits (as per Vintage Gardens' website) for my red HTs so that I could figure out which go in 15" pots, and which go in 22.5" barrels. Anything else I could get by simply searching the rose on HelpMeFind.

Here's a copy-and-paste piece of that file:

Have:

Bourbons
Honorine de Brabant (found) 1916 -- Long Ago Roses PLANTED
Eugene de Beauharnais 1838 -- Rogue Valley Roses PLANTED
Mme de Sevigne 1874 -- Long Ago Roses PLANTED
Mlle Blanche Lafitte 1851 -- Vintage Gardens PLANTED
Mme Dore 1863 -- Vintage Gardens PLANTED

On my file, the HAVE is larger and bold-italicized, the class is bold, the nurseries' names are italicized, and the status (i.e. "PLANTED") is bold-italicized-underlined. Of course, none of this shows up in this post. Sounds crazy, but all those typeface changes makes things stand out better in each line for me, so that it doesn't look like I'm reading a paragraph.

This inventory is repeated here, on Garden Web, on "My Page" (along with other ramblings about "how I did it"). And I also have a member garden listing at HelpMeFind (I call mine "Something Old & Something New"). I think everyone here should take a moment and upload theirs -- with Vintage Gardens closing, it'd be nice to know where the "not available elsewhere" roses are growing should someone wish to trade. And it's also helpful when you are looking up a rose to see if a gardener in your general area grows it -- and maybe send a message asking for a review.

:-)

~Christopher

While we're talking about record-keeping, can anyone recommend a good name-tag to use out in the garden for labeling roses? I've been using the large white ones (see link below), writing the information with a permanent black marker also sold by this vendor. After the first year, the ink fades a little, but is still easily read -- and touching it up isn't difficult.

But what's annoying is how easily the signs snap at the soil line. While #2 pencil on the thin plastic tags does last a long time, I'd like something easily read by someone casually walking around the garden. The tags I have now have the rose's name, below that the class of rose to which it belongs, and below that the year of introduction. I write the name of the nursery on the back, but I don't need that -- I have that information on my SimpleText file.

Bluegirltx -- where'd you get your tags? That sounds like something which would work for me. Do you have to get up close to be able to read them? I tried the copper tags from the same vendor as in the link below, but couldn't read them after a couple months out in the weather.

Maybe I should somehow "glue" a broken tag to a brick and leave it at the base of the rose...

:-)

~Christopher

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden T-Sign at Greenhouse Megastore

I use a leftover device from my design days--a garden sketch with attached plant list. I keep a lettered/numbered list on the computer and mark corresponding letters or numbers overlaying the blobs representing plant materials. Sometimes I label shrubs and trees directly on the sketch, too, for quick reference. My garden is so microscopic that it was fairly easy to measure the bed spaces and graph them by hand. I scanned the bed sketches prior to adding plant materials to the design. Whenever I rearrange my frequently transplanted but generously resilient roses and perennial companions, I print out fresh blank slates on which to sketch and resketch. No vellum and drafting pens, mind you. Just a casual affair with a black marker, colored pencils and graph paper. My great joy is that I only just barely grow a teeny lawn and no one can make me label it "turf" or suffer through all those tedious hash marks respresenting blades of grass. I do NOT miss that aspect of design work. #%*$@#+% lawns! Carol

This post was edited by PortlandMysteryRose on Fri, May 30, 14 at 1:23

P.S. Ingrid, I read those lists on forum members' pages. Thank you for posting and updating your rose collection! I'll post mine when I complete my Great Upheaval.

I have a very similar approach to bluegirl even down to using Open Office. I keep track of the variety's name, class, hybridizer, year of introduction, color that it blooms here, and source in a regular format document.

I also have a general Gardening Notebook where I note down dates I planted things, dates I started seeds, plants that are new to me, and so on. There is a rose catalogue within it where I keep track of what's here with notes about them as they grow. I add the notes to the digital catalogue occasionally.

Jay

I use Excel. I use it a lot at work, so it's natural for me.

I keep name, year, type, color, fragrance, year I got it, location. And I added a rating column for each year. I also have the ARS rating and since I've been going to shows, I keep the class for showing and the results for each show. I save a new file for each year so I don't lose historic data, roses that have died, etc.

For tags, I made these labels and put them on stands awhile ago, and they've mostly stood up to everything, except the lawnmower :(

Here is a link that might be useful: Kincaid Plant Markers

I'm using Amekron tags now, approx 1"x3". They're a medium weight aluminum foil crimped over a cardboard card. Writing on them with regular pen or pencil creates an embossed marking.

If I'm feeling really efficient, I'll Sharpie over the writing & then spray with clear Rustoleum. Highly visible, last forever.

Some tags from this brand have delaminated from the cardboard, (doesn't affect legibility) so I probably should seal them along the exposed open end where the cardboard gets wet with clear pvc glue.

I had some old unknown brand years back from ARE that are still on 20 yr old plants, but don't see them listed.

I don't like the tags that are a single, unlaminated strip of foil--they are fragile & tear off or wad up. The copper was also unsatisfactory for me--attractive, but corrodes into illegibility soon. Plastic tags snap, & even Sharpie-marked tags sprayed with clear Rustoleum eventually fade (though spraying lasts several years).

I think I got the last batch off e-bay, but IIRC, you can order from Peaceful Valley (groworganic.com) or from Amekon direct with large quantities.

I like the zinc tags on 12" double posts but don't find the plate easy to write on. So I fold over aluminum repair tape on the plate & emboss it.

I use that sticky backed heavy aluminum foil duct/plumbing repair tape to make labels on stakes. Photo won't post--I gotta learn to re-size.

(Sorry, wish I could recall who on e-bay I bought tags from--that's the sort of thing I'm trying to remember to scratch down in my notebook. But IIRC, they were $16-18 shipped for a 100 tag pack of Amekron labels. They are pre-punched with 2 holes & come with light weight wires--I usually use slightly heavier gauge wire. I think they run ~ $25 from Peaceful Valley)

Uh . . . throwing the invoices in a drawer?

Nope, can't be bothered...

I'd rather claw frantically through a 2' pile of cr*p stashed in a corner over the past 6 months.

Thrill of the hunt & all that.

Ooo, I have a drawer of invoices with purchase details! Now, if I could just remember which drawer....

A notebook with names and where and what year I purchased them. Although I use the email search function more for this. A map drawn in the notebook (just the border and will say window etc for reference) with the name of where I planted which rose. Many are crossed out as I keep moving them. Now I write in the year that I planted them. Helps me remember where I put what.

I keep two simultaneous Word files on my computer and a flash drive, as well as printed copies circulating to take out into the garden. One is an alphabetical list so I can check if I already have a particular rose (or if it has survived), or look it up quickly. The other is a list by location in my yard, so I can check the beds for survival or locate a given rose as needed. Each rose gets one line with its breeding, some HMF info (like favorite rankings), the height and where/when I got it, example below (I got this from Burlington this year):

Carlin's Rhythm - mauve/dk pk Rupert flori, 19 fav, lg single, ages pink, spreads, shade OK, vDR, 3-4', B14

Each time I plant a rose, or take out one that has died, I change the listing at the same time in the Alpha and Location lists, and if it died, I move it to a section later in each list of groups indicating why it died (best guess). Then periodically, I take that Alpha list and update my hmf listings for my yard. With 750-800 roses, I have to have some system that's really easy for me, and that I can carry around in the garden and make notes, particularly this time of year as I do the "death march" in a few weeks.

As for labels, I dearly love the PawPaw Everlast labels (everlast.com). They're reasonably priced zinc labels that you can write on with a black crayon, permanent marker, or paint pen. The latter lasts the best, but the others usually are readable for many years. They can be stepped on and bent back into shape countless times (ask me how I know...) and they come in a lot of shapes and configurations and numbers to suit your tastes. I buy them by the 500s.

Cynthia

I'm behind on my record keeping (ouch). I have an Excel spreadsheet which badly needs updating, with roses sorted by class then by name, with the nurseries or individuals I got them from, and some other information. The Excel spreadsheet doesn't give enough room for adequate comments, and I've been thinking about a parallel text document with rose varieties listed in the same order as in the spreadsheet, but with unlimited room for text. But I haven't started it. I also have written and drawn maps of sections of the garden and of the propagation beds where I start cuttings, very important in case labels get lost, which they do all the time. I accept that labels will not be my primary source of identification of plants in the ground, and that their labels will need to be replaced periodically.
About pots, by an evil magic they lose labels constantly no matter what I do. Recently I've taken to punching holes at the rims of plastic pots, threading ties through them, and attaching labels to the ties: I defy these labels to disappear! Labeling the pots is the only way I know to keep order in the pot ghetto, which contains probably a couple of hundred plants of every description.
Currently we probably have 500-600 roses in the garden and 300-odd varieties, spread out over a couple of acres. Keeping track of them is difficult but important. I've learned I can't trust my memory--and I have an excellent memory--and that I need multiple forms of documention, so that if one source fails I have another. Also that I need to keep better order in paperwork like invoices: saving them isn't enough, they need to be accessible and in order, but hitherto I haven't succeeded in this. I have other plants I would like to keep better records of, including lilacs, peonies, and violets, none of which I have satisfactorily documented.
Melissa

I use Apple Pages (aka Word). The key for me is photos. When I plant a new rose I included the sellers photo, plus I take a photo after it is planted. Then I paste in the description from the seller, date planted, etc.

Each year I update with notes and observations, and add a new photo as it grows.

All the photos keep me sane during the winter months! It always seems impossible in the dead of winter that such things actually exist outside in my garden!

There are some new apps that may be useful. For microsoft users, you probably have something called One Note, which you can combine Excel files (linking them) and then add pictures and notes in One Note.

For Apple there is an app called Note Suite that does something similar. I haven't used it that much yet, but it could be interesting to try.

I have a spread sheet in Excel that lists the:
name
where it's located in the garden
the year it was introduced
breeder
color
scent
zone
size
where and when I got it and how much I paid for it

I try to keep it as up to date as possible. It has been a big job this spring!

I also have a loose leaf binder with each roses photo and info in it as well. Kind of old school I guess, lol.

And I have hand drawn maps of my gardens so I know where everything is planted, roses, perennials and bulbs. It helps in finding places for things when I get something new.

I have a Google Document that I hope has remained in place since I have not updated it for a few years. Waiting for the update are all the invoices that I save as I purchase.

I also keep a folder with drawings of the beds in my yard. I also try to keep the names of any or all perennials and annuals as well as my roses.

The Google document is a good idea. As I begin to set it up, my master plan is to have a photo of each plant in place in the bed, and a photo of it individually. It would be fun to click on a name, and be able to see how the plant looks in the bed, and a closer view of the bloom itself.

The Google Document allows you to share it with anyone you wish. I would not open it necessarily, but I did in the past give access to my daughters.

Sammy