I love that one of your photos Ingrid. We have all gone and bought all the roses you loved because your photos are so gorgeous. Except this beauty, which I do not have yet.

My photo transfer to my new computer lost all my folders so now I have a mess too, when it had been organized by year at least. At least we have the photos.

I keep saying I’ll make records but never do. I just remember which rose is which when I see the pictures right now. I really need to do better. I already have lost track of which clems I have.

I have an old notebook full of roses many of whom I don't even remember having. When I had a country property, I did start to keep a diary, but I didn't do it here. I have occasional thoughts of doing it with the many natives we're planting now, but the way to hell........ I'm impressed by those that keep spreadsheets etc. Trish

No...hopeless. I usually attempt an allotment journal every year but they degenerate pretty quickly into moaning about the neighbours and random seed lists. I marvel at the plants I once had and no longer do - thousands of them. They are cherished and babied along in the coldframe and greenhouse until the moment they are let loose 'in the wild'. (like annoying teenagers)..when they are left to their own devices as I have moved on to more engaging novel varieties of plants to propagate. I am the epitome of an ADHD gardener.

I wish I had. It seems like I started trying at some point, but gave up. The most I've done lately is just make a list of what I currently have.

@rosaprimula UK (Cambridge) Z8/9 " when they are left to their own devices as I have moved on to more engaging novel varieties of plants to propagate. I am the epitome of an ADHD gardener. "

This is so me!

What has been working for me is using the "voice to text" option on my ipad. I take a photo, put it on a google doc, and then enable the voice to text option as I "narrate" what's in the photo. It's fast, and then later, I can go back and clean up any transcription spelling errors etc. It is fast & easy.

I have messes everywhere. I've started a note that has all of my areas numbered, and as I'm putting new things in a try to make a note of what is already there existing, and what is being added and when.

The note starts with a google maps screenshot of my yard where I've written all of the numbers for each bed.

I'm also a bit worried about transferring everything to a new computer, but the old laptop is too hard on my wrists now as I transfer it from my lap to the coffee table umpteen times a day. I weighed it the other day and it's six pounds, compared to the new ones that are between one and two pounds. Too bad the price is in an inverse ratio to the weight. If my new rose garden is allowed to exist by the ground squirrels I'm labeling everything, cross my heart!

Ingrid, I keep records of a kind on all the plants I grow. I have huge photo folders from each year with photos named, alphabetized, and date stamped, on my computer, and easy to access. Of course, my computer genius granddaughters with fingers of lightening "help" out with this big task and are amply rewarded by Nana, the flat earther. I also keep all the tags, labels, plastic tabs, and used seed packets of most of what I plant. I even have the metal charms that Meilland used to give with their roses. Each item is stored in photo albums with the plastic pockets, one item per pocket. The albums have a place to write, so everything is named and dated, plus I add comments here and there. I also keep a list of my watering schedule used every growing season. This is the day a given station was watered by our drip/tiny sprinkler system. All stations run for an hour each time I decide to water. This could be done wholly automatically, but I prefer to be in charge, not the computer-ha. So I can vary the number of times a week I water, depending on how hot it is, or if any rain has fallen (rarely). I also note hand watering of special plants. So there are records, but they are stored in different ways. Some are pretty sloppy, too....are your ground squirrels called whistle pigs, by any chance? Diane

Oh boy, Diane I knew I was on the disorganized side of garden record keeping but your post made me feel even more lazy 😅 I sort of try to keep records but not in earnest, I've thrown away so many tags and seed packets, and lost a laptop that had detailed notes on the first and second year progression of my roses. So my motivationmotivation to keep taking diligent rose notes is wavering.

Magpie, don't feel at all badly about not keeping many records. When I was your age, I didn't keep any records at all, and only did minimal gardening anyway. It's something an older person with no little kids can do much more easily. As to all the photos, I have a lot of help with those. Some seasons, I take up to 1100 photos! I need help. You don't have any help, and that makes a difference. Diane

Early on in my rose adventures I kept lists. I still have some of them buried on my computer. It is amazing how many roses I used to grow, though not all at one time. It numbers in the hundreds.

However, drought has led me to change my garden radically. I still grow 30-40 roses (a guess), and my front garden is a watered plot with favorite plants. I also have climbing roses on the back fence. However the rest of the gardenend area (about an acre) is native plants that need much less water. Now I like them, too, and am grateful that there is someting pretty I can grow without crazy water bills. But it is still the roses that I love best. And I do know what I currently have. They are listed on HelpMeFind.

I have a plant journal that I write the year and nursery that sold it to me.

There is a place to put when I fertalize.

It is sad to see all of the roses that I no longer grow

Diane, your scheme is incredible. I tend not to keep anything so I have my old battered rose notebook and the on-line picture folders, where the vast majority of roses are unlabeled. Kristine like you I have a huge list of roses that I discarded along the way and, yes, it's very sad to see. However, if and when my new roses are ready to be photographed I've sworn to myself that they'll all be labeled on my laptop. More important than ever as my memory often takes a hike.

I started a database in MS Works in maybe 2000 or 2001, and I was really good about updating it. Then, in the mid 2010s, the program was no longer supported and I only had it on an elderly computer in the study. The last print-out I have of it is from 2014, but I still refer to it all the time. It also has my ditched and died roses on it. I finally caved and made a new database in Google Sheets a few years ago, which is pretty easy to use. Excel is way too much for me. Eventually I want to get my older roses into the new one. But I have many pads of lined paper that I write every purchase on, and I keep all of the invoices.

My rainy blue in garden when summer time.

Eden, that is such a gorgeous rose with that lovely color veering between lavender and purple. On HMF it seems to lean more toward a lavender tone, but at any rate I really like this rose.

Yeah, they are gorgeous.

I'm so impressed with some of you! Such great record keeping, wow. I learned my lesson about not keeping records early so now I try to do better. I think I'm mediocre? I write down most things I plant in my garden journal when I plant them--including where and when I got them--taping the packing list in if I have one. Sometimes I write down where I planted it. I've also started saving labels but they're just in a pile on the porch so far.

I was listening to a garden podcast recently (I don't remember which, sorry) and the host was joking about how he had actual decades of detailed garden journals (with weather and everything) that would be left behind when he died. He wanted them to go to a museum but thought the grandkids would probably throw them all away.

It makes me thing about what happens to a garden when the gardener moves away or dies...gardens are fleeting works of art, a moment in time. It's why they're beautiful but also tragic.

Of topic a bit, but I am so so lucky - my husband's great grandparents immigrated here from Germany in about 1880. Their son married a lady who was also from German immigrant parents. Their son married a lady whose parents immigrated here from Scotland around 1900. The point of saying this is that both the German and the Scottish cultures at that time thought that land was a VERY important thing which should stay in the family, and they went to great efforts to accomplish that (both cultures also valued being "thrifty"). Those ancestors also loved to garden, and did so actively the entire time they lived here. The result of this was that our house, which was purchased new in 1905, was sold down to 3 more successive generations, the latest being my DH. Our 1/3rd acre lot has been gardened now by 4 generations of the same family. The result is that the soil is fantastic in the beds, and we even inherited several huge old mystery roses which I have enjoyed identifying over the years, as well as several gorgeous mature trees. I realize this is very unusual, at least in California - I am sure it happens way more common/ordinary on the US East Coast, Europe, etc. At any event, it has made my gardening journey a joy, and I have been passing down "family heirloom" plants to 2 younger generations of the family so far. I am sure that eventually this garden will go the way of all gardens, but I am so enjoying being its current caretaker. Below (in the next Comment) are two pics which include the original gardener - my DH's German great grandfather (note the secateurs hanging from his belt) - the first pic with my DH's grandmother - both about 1910-15 from the toy in the background, and the babe in arms who is my DH's aunt.

Jackie

@jacqueline9CA What great pictures, and how cool to have a garden in the family for so long! Thank you so much for sharing the story and the pictures.

Thank you, summercloud -

Jackie

How precious to have that kind of heritage, Jackie, and to have those wonderful photos. The size and quality of your roses and other plantings is a testament to how they cared for the soil for all those generations.

Mr Fairchild is really beautiful. Love that picture.

Fantastic pics, Jacqueline...and I love that continuity of culture and history. I don't own my land (allotment and home garden) and there is always that knowledge that all is temporary and ephemeral...but that also can make it feel precious.

Thanks - it is precious, and I am also lucky that my DH's family lives all around the SF Bay, and we see them all of the time. About 3 weeks ago we had lunch with a man and his wife - he is my DH's (who is 74) father's first cousin. He is our age, but one generation older because his father did not get married for the first time until he was 65, and then had kids. He remembers coming over to our house to visit from his earliest childhood - he is happy that we live here and take care of the garden.

We have so many pictures from 100+ years ago, and every time in between, that when new people move into the neighborhood we can sometimes give them picctures of their houses from long ago, which they like.

Jackie

I keep fantasizing about keeping notebooks or digitized a la your system Diane but then I lose the notebook I've started and don't want to start a new one--

One thing that is super helpful these days is how easy it is to label pics in the phone--ip[hone at least I don't know about others. I use the "i" button to label my pics as soon as I take them and they are easily searchable. That doesn't help with everything--feeding and habit and problems-- but even if you search your phone for "roses" iOS does a decent job of finding your pics.

Another phone trick I use is taking pics when everything is blooming--or not--and saving to Notes with circles arrows and MORE for where I want to move/fill in holes next year. Again, it's not comporable to a wonderful heirloom library of notes but it's better than nothing/my memory and definitely helps me the following season.

PS I would love to have kept my grandmother's notes from her rose garden! That would be a treasure, just to have the handwriting and see the care. I mean kids don't want silver or brass candlesticks these days but a stash of garden notebooks would be incredible.

Wow, some of you are really amazing at keeping detailed records!

I only keep a record of what potting soil I used for each plant, including my roses. That way when the time comes to repot, I can use the same one that they had been in before. It's nothing fancy, just a notepad I keep tucked away in the drawer where I keep my unused seed packets.

Eden Lee that rose is so beautiful!! I didn't know that one... What a wonderful lavender!

Meghan -- that's a great tip about the "circles, arrows, and MORE" In the spring when I am ordering filler plants/planting annual seeds, I often remember that I thought a certain color would be best in a certain place, but I don't remember what color or just where exactly. :) Writing notes on the anchor plant's photo is a great idea! Thank you!