I used a binder for a while, taped the plant tags on paper, cut out the plants I ordered from magazines and taped them on paper, put the papers in clear page protectors. Kept paper in there for when we would “tour” and jot down plans we had, things we wanted to do/change. Had drawings of various beds/parts of the yard w/notes. And then it got left outside in a rainstorm. Sigh.

My dad had a valise where he kept the nursery catalogs and legal pads for detailed notes on what was where, when it was out there. He’d draw out plans for new beds.

I don’t know about an app or anything tho.

That is a great idea! I just took pictures each area of my garden every month and noted the names of the plants. Of course I couldn't find those pictures right now. This is a far off picture of Spring blooms when I first bought the house.

Fall

I just use a spreadsheet and keep info on there.

I also use Excel and I have a diagram of each bed where each cell equals 1 square foot in the garden. Just the plant and date in each cell with all the other details on another worksheet.

I used a binder with pictures of all the plants and a drawing of the garden where they were I gave that one binder to the people who bought our house in Vancouver since I had designed that garden over a few years. The one I have now has also got notes about how well they did where they are and if I moved them or got rid of them Gardens have a habit of rearranging themselves and many times volunteers show up which can be wonderful or a real PITA .

Have never done any tracking :-) But I must have a plant-focused gene in my DNA because I can tell you what I grew in a garden more 25 years ago and where it was planted! And that was a large and complicated garden.

It might also help that I am a garden designer and plant placement is a rather critical aspect of that endeavor :-)

I find any garden or plant related apps rather pathetic and unhelpful anyway.

Thanks everyone for the feedback, esp those who were able to respond right away (I needed to get going the first day). I found a website that looked promising. I typed in two plant names and they were in the database. Then the next three were not. So that was discouraging. I also saw that Sunset magazine used to have an app that linked into the Sunset Western Garden book and all its encyclopedic information. But that was discontinued at some point since 2013. I was bummed at first but then realized...I don’t want to be enterring info into an appt that could go away. So I‘m on Team Excel and paper notebooks ;).

I realize I need (at least) a two-part system. One: the inventory of plants by exact species. So I typed those into Excel and it was relatively easy to cut and paste a link to more detailed info. And then I need location info (aka an overall plan). To date, I just created an MS Word doc with headers for different garden beds and then I listed the names of the plants in order. For the plants I wasn’t sure about (I just re-landscaped) I used jumbo index cards, jotted down the name and put the card by the plant and snapped a quick pic. (I felt like I should have gotten those name tags: “Hello, my name is geranium biokova”.”) And then I picked up the index cards in order, well aware they can be shuffled (or dropped) at any time. Thanks @Missi (4b IA) for the reminder that if anything can go wrong it will. ;) So it’s not a perfect system but it’s start. Thanks for getting me going when I was pressed for time.

I’m still open to other ideas too.

We change our yard so often, being too specific would be a full time job. I grew up on an acreage and when my dad suddenly realized he had a green thumb...it became a full time second job for all of us, and I said NO WAY am I continuing that..thankfully we don’t have the room for 5k daffodils and tulips just for starters...but we’ve managed to go pretty crazy regardless. If I could do it all over again, I would’ve been keeping track from the start. There’s no way to catch up now, so it’s half hearted at best. And crinkled from being in the rain..

One thing I would very much recommend is taking pictures every year, even if you don’t actually change anything. You’ll still see different things. Also, pictures from the roof looking out over the yard are amazing.

I wrote my own app that uses an integrated SQL database and allows links out to my personal photos, but it's kind of clunky and half the time I just keep notes in Open Office's word processor and spreadsheet anyway, with SQL databases when required.

(I wouldn't want to be accused of flying by the seat of my pants when questioned!)

I keep my soil tests in files, as images, and track the changes as necessary, and as noted, I'm careful to take tons of photos every year of everything!

I find that writing down even the trivial stuff helps. You can always search the word processor file for the last time you sharpened your clippers (or whatever). I can't remember it all, I do far too much what with the career and hobbies come a day to keep all that in my head.

I also take photos during the year. Sometimes you don't realize how much a plant has grown until you compare pictures.

Unless you grow Sunflowers - from seed. Had so much fun

watching them grow this year. Couldn't find the pics to attach to my previous email, here they are. Next year I will grown them again but will go for plants that have multiple flowers instead of one.

I loved the Teddy Bear sunflowers myself. If you nick off the first set of blooms from each plant, they'll rebloom very, very easily several times through the season. The second (through...fifth or sixth?) blossoms are smaller and weaker, but still pretty nice, although the plants get old looking real fast.

I might suggest growing two generations in a given year and replacing the Bears after their second blossom. They just look better.

And there are Teddy Bear relatives in a variety of colors and heights.

(sorry for the OT here, start a new thread for a rundown of that).

Thanks for the tips

Gardengal--I bet you are blessed with a photographic memory. Each Spring, I look at what's coming up in complete puzzlement--I can't remember what perennial is where. I take a lot of photos--they are still only pennies to print, if you are old school and want to paste them into a book. I keep a journal. I used to just name the plant, but I have since learned to write down where I got that plant (in case I want more the next year) and where I planted it. The Excel thing sounds pretty excellent--might move up to the 21st Century and try that on for size.

violet, you make be laugh......

I also keep track of how much I paid for the plant and how much I spend each year.

How much mulch is needed for each area of the garden, so I know how much

to buy next time. I've too much time on my hands obviously.

I started with a spreadsheet. It turned into too much info to remember and my laptop is not easily accessible in the garden, so it was all but useless.  :-)  So now I keep notes on my phone. One note contains an inventory of plants within each garden section of my yard, listed according to when they bloom. Then a Garden Care note, which contains a seasonal maintenance checklist for relevant plants. The third note is a general To Dos - random upkeep, transplants, or dividing I listed last year that I wanted to accomplish this year, new plants I want to consider, etc., according to the season in which they should ideally happen.

Finally, I have a whole folder of bookmarks in my browser sectioned off for plants I want to buy, those I have, and related care. If I type "nepeta" into my browser, all related bookmarks appear. Or I can hunt for what I need in the bookmarks manually. It took a little time to build - researching and bookmarking for each plant tag - but totally worth it! When I'm in the garden, there's pretty much nothing now that I don't have on my phone and I can make notes for the next week, the next season or next year when it's fresh on my mind, along with relevant pics (oh! I have a gardening section of photos by year too!).

I may win the "too much time on my hands" contest now, lol!

Last summer I began using an app called GoodNotes. It has nothing to do with gardening, but rather a journaling app. I liked it because I could take pictures of individual plants and past them onto a page to create a photo map of what’s growing where on one page. I could take photos of all the plant care labels and put those on another page. I took a picture of a steep bank and sketched on top of it to figure out where I wanted steps to go. It sounds like you are looking for something a bit more specific to gardening, but thought I’d share this as a different approach that I’ve enjoyed.

I would love to be someone who would maintain an excel spreadsheet of my garden but I know it won’t happen. I maintain massive spreadsheets for work. The last thing I want is to feel the need to use my gardening time for that. Keeping a journal in GoodNotes was fun, and I could easily incorporate drawings, sketches, notes, etc.

Hi all - I recently went through this thought process myself trying to journal all garden beds and what's planted where (I planted a ton of bulbs and dormant perennials that are not visible from the surface) since I moved into a new house. I couldnt find a good app to help with this. I am looking into building an app myself. I will be more than happy to share it with the community if it will help. I would like to hear what will be the key features you would like to see in the app and what will help.

nova, just curious - did you ever build that app?

I track pretty much everything using my home inventory app (SimpleOne Home Inventory Manager). I just create a new category for the Garden items. But it would be neat if there were an app dedicated to just garden things.