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How do you keep track of your roses?

13 years ago

I have about 40 bushes, some are unknown, but most I know. I keep track of them on pieces of binder paper with sort of a "plot plan" drawing of the rose beds with squares for the bushes. Not very high tech.

Is there a better way?

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Comments (14)

buford
13 years ago
You just gave me an excuse to show off my new labels and stands. Thanks to karl for the source!

{{gwi:275407}}

I have about 100 roses. I have most of the labels made. I did run out of tape for my brother ptouch so I had to order more and I have to put the rest of the stands together.
C Schaffner
13 years ago
I do mine the same way. Each bush has it's own page in a loose leaf binder, so I can makes notes if I need to. You could probably keep track on Office excel, But I like to have my list portable.
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Why, oh, why would I want to keep track of my expenses? What if my husband saw it!?! I have been assuring him for years that I get the majority "free" on some sort of loyalty incentive program. He is not stupid, but the lie comforts us both and provides marital harmony. Actually, good luck with keeping track of your expeditures. I obviously don't, but gardening is my one splurge. I am willing to wear old clothes, continue driving my swamp car, and dye my own hair (although if any of you actually know me--this is totally my natural hair color as I am certainly not going gray!). I put costs in equivalent number of roses to decide what gets fixed: 3 months of hair dye--one rose, fixing swamp car's blinkers--10 roses; buying new car--way, WAY too many roses. So far, I get hair dye, but keep swamp car without useable blinkers.
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I have about three hundred varieties of roses and about five hundred plants, and I'm not nearly as organized as I should be. For me, and I guess for anyone who has a lot of roses, multiple strategies are essential. I have my roses listed on HelpMeFind under the name "Il Giardino ai Papa". This list is mainly for those who want to know what roses I have (for exchange purposes, for example) so that I won't have to mail either a computer file or a bulky paper list. Then I have my critically important Excel spreadsheet, sorted by rose class, then rose name, and including plant source, ease of propagation by cutting, and space for comments. I don't keep information here that I can readily access elsewhere. I have a paper printout of my spreadsheet that I take notes on, and I update the spreadsheet online annually, generally a job for late fall when I know what has survived a year in the garden, as we also plant at this time. I have a garden notebook, much neglected lately, but in which I keep all my plant orders and invoices of shipments received. Labeling the rose is where I break down. I keep the nursery labels on the plant, then, at least in theory, I add a more permanent label, in my case using ones made of Tyvek, available in a roll of 1000, and written on in pencil. I've used aluminum labels that you impress with a stylus of some sort, but have found that they're hard to see on the plant, especially the many-caned, leafy, once-flowering old roses. The pencil-written Tyvek labels are durable, but they get lost, disappear in the foliage, have to be shifted to a new cane when the old one dies or is pruned away...all kinds of things happen. So maps are important. I have some of my garden mapped and need to map much more of it, plus update the maps I have. All this is complicated by mis-named roses. Roses arrive mislabeled by the nursery; or they've been in commerce for years or decades with a wrong name; or cuttings come from friends, named, misnamed, or with no name at all; or mystery roses arrive to take up residence, with no one involved having any idea at all what variety they are. These roses add considerably to the confusion. (I mostly have old and older roses, where these problems are perhaps more common than among modern varieties.) Melissa
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SeattleSuze and Wild Rose: Even if you don't have a scanner, I think you could take it to a Kinko's and have them scan it and place the file on a CD for you. I'd make sure the drawing to be scanned is done in black ink on a white paper, clean lines - have it scanned at a resolution of 600 or 1200 and saved as line art (NOT in pixels). It can be saved as a line Photoshop file (an .eps), at which time you can reduce the resolution to 300. Then it can be placed into a file in your word processing program (on a Mac, something like PageMaker or QuarkXPress - I'm not familiar with the Microsoft programs). The beauty of this type of Photoshop file is that you can use it as though it is transparent, with just the lines showing, and you can place colored or patterned background behind it to show through - say, a pink background, with a dark color chosen for the line, say crimson. Of course, that is just playing around. For a plain workaday chart, you can just place the file into your WP program as a plain black-and-white illustration. Either way, once your art is placed into the WP program, you can just type in the names where you want them. I should mention that it's been a few years since I was doing this kind of work, and I imagine there have been some changes in these programs, the world of software being what it is. But if you know someone who's into all this, or if there's a Kinko's nearby, something LIKE this can be done. I don't know for sure if Kinko's performs a scanning service, but I do know that they used to have "design stations" where, for a fee, you could work on their equipment. Good luck. Laura
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eeekk
13 years ago
I made an account on HelpMeFind and added all my roses to the account. I figure that will allow me to remind myself of their proper names in case I forget.
kentstar
13 years ago
I don't have that many roses, only 6, but I keep all my plants, perennials included on not only a Works spreadsheet, but I also use the garden online journal on Dave's Watchdog.
socks
Original Author
13 years ago
Buford--hope you come back. What is the source for your tags?

Do you bark all 100 roses? Do you like bark better than mulch of some kind?
buford
13 years ago
Hi, the stands I got from here:

They are very heavy duty and stainless steel. Much better than the Paw Paw stands. The labels I made with a Brother PTouch labeler. I do keep a spreadsheet with all my roses in it so I just used that to make the labels.

Yes, I use bark in all my rose beds. I find it lasts the longest and it keeps the soil underneath moist. I live in Georgia and have mostly clay soil and if it's not mulched, it gets very hard and cement like.
hoovb zone 9 sunset 23
13 years ago
Hi, the stands I got from here:

??? Where???

Those tags look good! The Paw Paws are good but I agree could be sturdier.

I have tags but the real inventory is in my head. The tags go missing. Haven't lost my head (yet).
mori1
13 years ago
I only have 12 so not to hard to remember. I have written them down but any notes are kept in my head.
ingrid_vc so. CA zone 9
13 years ago
Buford, your labels are beautiful, at once decorative and yet not obtrusive. I really like labels in other people's gardens but don't care for them in my hilly country garden. I have a rose notebook that lists all my roses, all the roses I've discarded, roses I hope to have in the future, names of vendors and dates when I've purchased roses, and roses listed according to their locations, i.e. front triangle, back rectangle, driveway etc. I have only around 90 roses and know them well enough not to have to list their exact location in each area. It's somewhat primitive, but works very well for me.

Ingrid
buford
13 years ago
Darn, sorry hoov, I really stink at doing links:

Kincaid Gardens

I actually had to order more. I bought the 15 inch stands. The label part is angled so it will be readable as you are standing above the plant. But I forgot I have some roses in permanent pots so those will be too big. Plus I ordered 100 stands and I forgot I have 104 roses! So if I want to label each one (I have some duplicates, but they are in different spots, not a bed of one type), I needed more stands. So I just ordered the pack of 15 in assorted sizes.
buford
13 years ago
ingrid, I'm about the same. I don't need the tags to keep track, only once in awhile if I've moved a rose I can get confused. The tags are mostly for my husband who's always asking 'what's this one again?'. So when we went to a formal garden and saw labels, he said we had to have them. I tried once before, but the stands I used weren't sturdy enough and I used black tape and it faded.

I also have the spreadsheet and I also give my beds names 'front oval bed, driveway bed, heart shaped bed'. Isn't it funny how we all do that?
treebarb Z5 Denver
13 years ago
A poster on the conifers site had metal tags made with the name of each plant and painstakingly wired them to each tree. Shortly after, his small child went by clinking as she walked. She had just as painstakingly removed each tag and made jewelry for herself with them!
I make a list of plants I bring home, sort out their height, width and light requirements then insert them in diagrams I have for my different beds after planting. I also keep the tags from the plants in a notebook so I know the latin name, where I got the plant and what I paid for it. If I ever add it all up I'll be shocked, I'm sure!
I like the tag stands and the spreadsheets are a great idea!

Barb
everyrose
13 years ago
Like Buford, I switched to Kincaid labels. They are really great--sturdy and good looking. Much better than Paw Paws.

Here's another great product--Rite in the Rain notepads. These are made with water resistant paper so you can use them outdoors and not worry if they get wet, and dirt wipes off the pages. You write with either a pencil or waterproof pen. I have a small notepad with a cover that I keep in my garden tool caddy for jotting stuff down, and a notebook sized pad for garden plan drawings and keeping track of plants.
buford
13 years ago
I'm actually giving my left over paw-paw labels for a friend who's doing a veggie garden in a community plot. So they aren't going to waste.

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