I keep accurate & detailed records on all my plants, though I have found a way to simplify the process and minimize the amount of time and effort it takes to keep these records up to date. I decided that for my purposes, there were only three areas that warranted the keeping account of what my plants were doing & when. The careful selection of these three areas was key in freeing up my time to pursue plant interests aside from record-keeping. Each time a plant leaves the growing bench without authorization, I mark it down. I strictly enforce the "three strikes & you're out" rule - I simply don't have time to be chasing after plants all day. The "three strikes" strategy seems to be working as the incidence of AWOL plants is very low this year. 2) When a plant pitches a fit & stops transpiring until it turns brown, I make a mental note of it. Before placing a "black mark" on the record, the plant is first put on notice that if it doesn't mend it's ways, it will be discarded, along with its own special page in my book of records. Often, just one quick trip to anywhere in the near vicinity of the compost pile is all it takes to correct this aberrant behavior. 3) Plants that pretend they are suffering for trite reasons (like lack of water or fertilizer, insect infestations or pesky diseases) will be threatened with the same three strikes rule as outlined in example #1. I remind them with something like "There are millions of starving plants in China - so you don't have it so bad". I often tell them if they don't straighten up they will have to wait until spring to be fed. At this time, I still don't mark anything down, choosing instead to put the plants and their records from example #1 in plain view; the obvious implication here being "You could be in their shoes". This usually gets them (and me) through 'til spring without having to mark anything down - but I would if I had to!!! Let me know, please, if you have need of additional aid in structuring your own set of records. Al

Thank you Bryan(Jacamar) for the praise. As Bryan mentioned....Pictures are taken of the plants when they first arrive showing their roots. Another picture of the roots on each repotting, to check for root growth. I take yearly pictures of the plants to keep track of their growth, and to see which plants are doing welll and which plants are not. The ones that are not I try to figure out what I am doing wrong and try and change that. Pictures of each plant as they flower and on the last day of flowering to check the length of flowering. I have files for each orchid on my laptop. Data wise I keep track of price paid, seller and date acquired in one file. In Microsoft word name, seller, the picture off the tag, potting date(all of them), flowering start date, flowering end date, pot size, potting medium, deciduous/evergreen, minimum temperature for use in determining when I can put the plant outside, location of plant(hard to keep up as I keep moving the plants around). Currently I am making tags for each plant which have a picture of the plant(my own picture if the plant has flowered for me or one off the web if it has not) on the one side with the name on it and on the other side it has a picture of the plant as it looked when it was purchased with the first pot date and first flower date - the tag is laminated. I also research each plant in OrchidWhiz software, eAOS software, and on the web and keep various pieces of information like warm/hot/cool grower, time of flowering, length of flowering, size of plant, height and spread, flower size, fragrant and type e.g. vanilla, number blooms, awards, etc. I have tried many different things but never found one method that holds all of the information that I want to keep on my plants. As you can see I spend a lot of time on this....comes from being bedridden for many years.....hopefully my reply is not too confusing. Sorry for the lengthy reply.

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

I can't seem to be too organized about this. I repot in binges, and kind of use my instincts for repotting. I look at the plant and ask some questions: 1. Is the pot now too small for the plant? Remember the 3:1 ratio, pot is 1/3 the diameter of the plant. If the plant has grown enough to make the next pot size in that ratio, it is time to repot. It is also probably 'tippy' due to the size of the plant. 2. Are there roots growing out the bottom of the pot? If so, check the root ball. If it is really potbound, it may need a larger pot, it may just need a root pruning and placed back in the same pot with some new potting mix. Remember that repotting doesn't always mean moving up in pot size. I just last night finished repotting 31 new plants from a trip and a violet show. I wick water, and took all the old soil off the roots and put into 1:1:1 mix. Everything went back into the same size pot except for a couple that actually went down in size. As far as records, I keep two: an inventory and a 'have' list. My inventory is on an Excel spread sheet. I have categorized 'plants' (on their own wicks), 'plantlets' (ready to put onto wicks), OH LOOK THERE IS A CARDINAL OUTSIDE!!, 'baby plantlets' (recently planted babies), 'leaves with babies', and 'leaves' (no babies). This helps me know when I have a lot of something and can freely share it. My have list is simply a numbered list with all my varieties. I satrted just writing a number on the pot, but soon realized I was always looking at the list to see the name, so now I write the number and the name right on the pot. It's on MS Word, and I figured out how to alphabetize it, so I print it and take it with me to club meetings and shows. Helps eliminate too many duplicates. Oh, I forgot the 3 ring binder. Has a page for each variety with the information for that variety. I do make notes occasionally but not as often as I probably should. When it was fifty plants, okay, but at almost 300 varieties, too O/C for me. Whew! Barbara