Sara Ann, SO glad to hear I'm not the only one! I take my pictures on my iPhone, too, since it's always handy. I also end up with lots of "dud" pictures, so I instead of downloading them all to my computer, I email the ones I like. I get behind doing this, and so by the time I sent them to my computer, many times I ended up with lovely pictures of "mystery white", "mystery pink", etc. Now, once I finish taking shots of a rose I easily confuse with another, I immediately take a picture of something distinguishing next to or near it. This has solved my "mystery rose" picture problem, but I'm sure there is a better way. I'm looking forward to hearing what others suggest.

I guess I should have added that when I save the emailed picture to my computer, I save it as the rose name (or abbreviation) and date I took the picture (i.e. elle070414) and save it to a folder by year (i.e. roses 2014)

I may not have the best solution but it works for me. It takes a little longer when taking pictures but I find I make fewer mistakes. All of my pots/plants are labeled with the name of the plant and I've assigned a number to each one. Just a simple 1,2,3,....55,56.... When I take a picture I email it to myself right then from my phone with the number in the subject line. Helps me keep everything straight.

I have a spreadsheet in excel with name and assigned number to keep track of fertilizing, spraying etc.

I also have a file in word that has all the pertinent data on each rose/daylilly/ or whatever. Each flower has its own page and as I take pictures I insert them onto the correct page for that flower.

I keep offering to let my family look at my journals but they all just smile sweetly and say no thank you.

I usually always walk my garden in the same route, roses in the front bed down the walk to the patio pots then out to the street bed, as I'm taking pictures. I have detailed spread sheets so I know where each rose is planted and if I'm not sure of the rose's name I can usually tell which one it is by the rose pictured before and after it. Oh, that must be Pink Peace because it's between Julia Child and Quietness out at the street bed. I do occasionally mess up but I try to always download my pics daily so I can run out and check. Yes, my neighbors think I'm crackers sometimes out there at 11 pm with a flashlight trying to ID something, lol! This doesn't happen much with my named varieties, more with my seedlings.

When I'm out somewhere else I always take a picture of the tag after I shoot the rose (or any flower or plant) so I can identify it. I learned that quickly when I toured a gorgeous rose garden, came home with a boat load of beautiful photos, and couldn't remember a single name! I also carry a note pad so if there is no tag I can ask and write the name down.

In the spring I like to take photos before and after pruning. Of course there are no blooms to ID them with so I carry a clip board and write the rose name down as I photograph and prune each rose. Later on in the season, hopefully when they're blooming, I try to take a full bush photo of each rose doing the same thing with the clip board. With these photos I can tell how well a rose wintered, how much I had to prune it back, and how well it grew back afterwards. It's good information if you're trying to decide about if you want to keep a rose or not.

I'm not yet at the point where I can't recognize roses by their pictures (my inventory is small compared to others, and I don't have many similar roses besides my pot-pet HTs), but here's what I do -- upload one at a time to Facebook from my phone, and type a description for each pic. That later gets uploaded to Photobucket. If ever I need to go back and "find a pic", that info I may have forgotten has already been entered and saved. In my case, it's the dates that I have trouble remembering -- I can easily name the roses without looking at their name tags since I've been obsessing over them since potting them up as bands. Will my memory hold out when my inventory reaches 200? We'll see.

;-)

~Christopher

Some good suggestions everyone, thanks. I never thought I would have any problems identifying any of my roses, but when I started taking lots of pictures and not viewing them for several weeks, there are some that are more difficult to identify. Pat, I like the idea of taking another picture of something distinguishing next to it. You all have some great ideas. Thanks so much.

I do a lot of the things mentioned here - I take the same path through my garden, I save pictures quickly with the name in the subject line (though I don't always get to this), I take pictures of tags. I also have extensive spreadsheets listing all the plants I grow with many details about taxonomy and care. Like you, Beth, my family seems less than appreciative of the inherent interest of such records! :)

Pat, taking a photo of a neighbouring plant is inspired! I'm definitely going to copy that idea.

Karen

I, too, sometimes use location in yard and some sequence of my most of the time routine "walk thru." The problem is that sometimes I take pictures of roses in a vase. Months later, I've found that LET FREEDOM RING, VETERAN'S HONOR, and GRANDE AMORE are hard for me to distinguish when placed in a vase. If I can see the stems and leaves that helps. I do plan on devising a better plan on labeling the roses.