"Hello!" from the Head Gardener's Dogsbody

Hello Dogsbody...this does make me mate (your name)

I suppose they could come from the same family of plants being similar.

I've never thought of doing what you've mentioned writing the names down...good idea mate, I know I lost 7 Callistemon plants (Bottlebrushes) to this winter gone and they was my pride and joy...they went through quite some winters but this one really took them from me

 

Totally agree. Perhaps I have mentioned before even with seed sowing, use labels, common name on one side and botanical name on the other. Sadly so many folk find it difficult dealing with the latin or botanical names. These are universal and actually give some description of the plant, whereas what for instance you may call a plant in your part of the country or world, in other locations it goes under a different name.
In addition, why not sketch out on paper or your computer, a rough sketch of your garden. Using x 1 x2 x3 etc as the marker for each plant, then add a legend at the bottom of the page eg; x1 = so & so plant etc. Great when perhaps when planning to change the garden. Just a tip.

 

Some great suggestions there Mike! I have a particularly poor memory which needs a lot of help! Fortunately we live in an era of high quality digital cameras and computers and I use them to assist my unreliable recall. I have several strategies. When we buy new plants for the garden I try to photograph them and then import the photographs into the computer. Once inside the computer I will associate the name of the plant with the photograph. There are several ways you can do this. One way is simply to give the image filename the same name as the plant (e.g. Persicaria Red Dragon.jpg). Another way to do it is to put the plant description in the file's metadata.
Another tactic I use is to import the photographs into Journaling software (I use MacJournal) so I can see at-a-glance the botanic and common names of the plant, when it flowers, a photograph and any other useful information about it. I've enclosed a screen grab below so you can see what it looks like.
I entirely agree with you about using a map to identify the location of plants. I've often wondered if the is some computer software (can't you tell I'm a geek?) to do just that! Our garden is very largely made up of perennials - an absolute joy in the Summer but in Winter you're left with a lot of featureless soil, and it's difficult to remember where the plants were!!!! Of course we use labels and tags in the soil, but often the writing fades even with indelible ink...... :(