Labels

Can anyone suggest a good marker for plastic labels that will not fade in sun or eventually wash off, I do not mind if I have to pay £5 or more for a pen or what not as long as it is good.??
Last year I had this idea of taking a photo of all the fuchsia plants before flowers dropped so I had an idea what they were. Put a photo in a small bag and attached it to the pot when it went in greenhouse. The condensation, sun etc destroyed the photo so come this year every plant once cut down before budding looked same. Hence got completely mixed up,with hanging basket fuchsias in pots & vice versa.
I have also used a permanent pen that came with the plastic labels I purchased this year and even that is starting to fade. I have several fuchsias that are the same so would like to put them in front garden next year as well as duplicate geraniums.

I cannot resist a new fuchsia or pot and now it has grown to 71 pots!! Need to have some pots free next year for all the flowers we are growing from seed but at same time need to label them now before the flowers all drop off so I can section them in greenhouse ready for planting in front.

Thanks

 

I looked around for just such a pen and was always dissapointed. The best thing I found was A PENCIL. Fairly soft one but works a treat.

Cheers, Tony.

 

I use the STABILO Write 4 All , fades a tad but never washes off.
I use the fine size for the little plastic labels

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stabilo-W...pplies_Stationery_ET&var=&hash=item1c2d48b289

 

I use a P-touch label printer and stick the result on to a piece of wood and a nail ..... no copyright claimed

 

Pencils seem to do the trick for me

 

I usually find a pencil works for me....unless my old Dad takes them out to look at and puts them back in the wrong pot thus resulting in 2 tumbling toms and a very large Beefmaster tomatoe in a 14" hanging basket

 

I photograph the plant, in flower, with the original label in-shot as a record (on my PC ) of the plant in case all else fails (my chickens pluck the labels out, Magpies will do too, garden visitors will pick one up, read and say "That's interesting" ... and then put it back on a completely different plant ... labels sticking out of pots get knocked out by accident when moving the pots around ...

I push the labels almost entirely into the pot, and have the writing on the side facing the pot. Much harder to knock them out by accident, no direct sun to make them fade, and best of all my visitors moan "Why aren't there any labels on your plants" - result

 

I used Ikea pencils, which are the sharpest pencils I've ever come across.

Also they're free. I sometimes go in there and stick 30 in my pocket.

 

Thanks all,some excellent ideas .I like all the suggestions.
Jungle Jane, no wonder I can never find a pencil when I go to Ikea .Mind you I have to admit when I fill out my Irish lottery ticket the pen goes in my pocket. Screwfix used to supply nice pencils for their forms and I would inadvertently have a couple in my hand when I walked out of the store,now they have pens.

 

As an ex betting office manager, now I know why I went through 10 gross of the things in a week.

 

All joking apart it beggars belief, to me, that people don't consider this theft - same as any other. Maybe I'm missing something?

 

I specifically sourced 2B pencils with eraser just for potting I use the rubber to micro-manage seeds when sowing them in small pots / trays, and the pointy end as a dibber (rubber still comes in handy for gently shoving things). I find the 2B writes on labels a bit better than an HB

Anything other than an HB with a rubber is not all that easy to find though ...

 

With 100s of daylily plants and seedlings, I had to come up with cheap, easy to make tags and labels. So I use the opaque plastic bottles my cat litter comes in, cut it into the size I want, and etch names/numbers into it with a small tipped soldering iron. Push it all the way through for a string hole. They are free, recycled and permanent.

 

OOps Pam I better not tell you what betting shop and what town.
And to fair yes I suppose it is theft but the betting shop manager does not mind me having a few pens.Then you can ask is it the managers right to say yes as she/he does not supply them??

To take it one further how many of us have snipped off a cutting from a bush or taken seeds that lay in a flower pod and taken it home,same difference??? Come on Kristen surely you have done this in the past.Where do you draw the line?? Someone paid for and planted the bush/flower so even the cutting & seed pods belong to them.What if the bush is hanging over in public area does that make it exempt
To make it clear I am not having a go as I am guilty as hell but trying to stimulate a bit of light debate