labeling iris methods

I coated them after. I think the Clear Coat makes the actual label last longer.

I too use Paw Paw labels (or Eon) and Brothers' PTouch with TZ tape. It works great for me. My only gripe is with the metal labels. I often trip on them in the snow and pull them out or bend them up so they aren't very useful any more, but I am not sure that there is anything better.

That is a problem with Paw Paw metal labels , they bend easy, when I was in Wyoming the deer tore the tags up hitting them and would knock the name plate off by either breaking them off right by the entry holes.

I would have to put up a 6 ft fence around the beds to keep deer out during the fall and winter months, then remove the fencing the following year so I could let people walk the gardens and put the fence back up. No deer here. You are probably wondering why I keep putting up fence and removing it. Stupid Subdivision rules

I bought over 1000 new tags this year from them, and I now my snow drift banks are gone off my iris I can see some of the names have faded and washed out on the labels that were marked this summer and many of them are pitted from sand dirt, both Wyoming and here are bad for dust storms , it seems like the names are being sand blasted off.

Wonder if the P touch tags would end up having the lettering sand blasted down

Don't know. The sand blasting hasn't happened to me, but we don't have the kind of wind people get in Wyoming and Montana. I would definitely not want to put a fence up and take it down again each year.

I plan to get the paw paw style c markers and put them about 7 inches into the ground. I dont need them tall so bending shouldnt be to much of a problem. Plus i dont have deer in my yard and i dont walk in my back yard in the winter. Should be ok.

Well, I do wreck a few paw paws each year, but on the whole I am very satisfied with them overall. I figure Paw Paw ( and Eon) can't be blamed for my clumsiness, though I sure wish they could.

im sure i will have a few casualties each summer.

I wreck a few myself when the apples bomb the tags or the snow is so heavy it bends some. Ted said for me to lay them flat in the middle of the clump if snow becomes a huge problem but I do not have many huge clumps yet and do have animals like moose, deer, turkeys, porcupines, racoons and other critters that walk on two legs entering my gardens. I am leaving them stuck into the ground and will replace a few in the spring. The Maine Iris Society does buy them group discount and so they are pretty reasonable to replace.



This message was edited Jan 25, 2009 6:29 PM

must be a great site to see a moose in the back yard!!! We only have those in the upper peninsula! They dont cross the bridge luckily. LOL

Moose and porcupines and apples bombing the tags. Talk about guerilla gardening. I would just love to see your place, Mainer.

We have the turkeys, racoons, deer, coyotes, wolves, all traipsing through my garden. They do bend them, and sometimes the turkeys pull them out, for what reason, I don' t know. I've never had snow bend them, and we get an average of 300 inches per year.

When I worked up north, in the Adirondacks there were a lot of moose. They are bigggggg suckers. I can imagine what damage they would do to a garden.

Yup, one ran into my house, wrecked the well house, cracked the top of the well, wrecked our drain pipe and ate up the corn in the neighbors garden, broke the cement furniture in the other neighbors yard and we split up the meat as a compensation when the warden shot it. The female had cataracts and was blind. We had hoped to save her but the warden said she could not survive blind and that was why they were raiding the corn in the field. She nearly got hit by several cars when she was crossing the road so the warden took care of it.

The babies were well grown and so the warden moved them to a better area. We have a cattle fence up and repaired the horse pasture fence even though we do not own horses anymore to keep the moose out most of our living space. They may use the driveway to cross the road should they get in through the driveway.

Our appletrees in the orchard keep the deer happy but we fence in the veggie garden to keep the deer out of it.

We have bear, coyotes, no full wolves yet but my brother does raise and train half wolf, half huskies. Unless rabid, the coyotes seem to leave us alone most of the time. If they cause trouble people do shoot them.

The apple bombing is my fault but the most protected side for my irises is under the appletree on the east side where the sun gives me the longest season I can stretch for them. I actually had to cover up Baby Blessed with a plastic table cloth for she rebloomed in Oct which is way past frost time in my area.

As far as the snow, we get ice storms sometimes like this winter and if we get them before the snow lays down, well it gets heavy and causes bending, not to mention dead irises.

It was negative eleven degrees outside last night so thirty degrees feels warm today. Think I will show you my frozen apples that bomb my tags.

How about my fenced in veggie garden? This is all ice not snow. We now have snow 28 inches of it on top.

I don't have any apples left on the trees. The deer eat them all. I see them butting the trees to get the top ones off, it's comical.

We do get some icing, but not too much, ours is mostly snow. And that's surprising as we are not nearly as cold as you. We have around 0 to maybe - 3 or 4 at the worst.


No bear here either. The moose are so wonderful to see, but not that kind of damage.

We do have full wolves, but they are really no threat. The DEC did a DNA test on our local coyotes and found they were bred with some grey wolf blood, no trace of dogs at all.

EEEwww rabid coyotes. How scary. Is that a big problem there? So far not here, although we have had a couple of known rabid fox, and raccoon in the area.

Now the birch trees unfortunately broke when they bent in half but most of my trees survived just fine. Add 28 inches of snow it is very heavy and we are still digging out from both storms. The only deer that were allowed in my garden so far was around Christmas time. Hope you like them even out of season. They are gone now.

Yup,that's ice. Now that's really no fun.

Was year before last a problem but the coyote affected was removed and the bats and other animals were taken care of. Normally foxes do not come around anymore for we do not have chickens and horses like we did in the past. Eighty six acres was our neighbors farm, they died and houses sprung up and we are only about 4 acres but the part the used to belong to the farm is in back of us was 45 acres and the other neighbor now dead owned 96 acre farm, woods and that part is now new houses most of it. Quite a change and the animals are not used to it yet.

Julianna

We have a crab apple, nowhere near the plants--bird sown I expect. The robins were working it over yesterday. Coyotes got a deer last week--but extra snow since then may make tranport problem for them now & the deer stay yarded up.

i hate seeing land get turned into developments. Its so sad.

Right, let's hear it for open space!

yeah!!! My father owned 40 acres awhile back in an area that was protected called Marilla. You have to have 40 acres to build a house. No less. Its a beautiful country area. Mostly owned by one family. They have a large farm where they grow pickles and strawberries. If you eat pickles you have probably had one from that area. I read once that 40 some odd percent of pickles pass through Marilla. It really is a very beautiful area. Rolling hills, large maple trees and small creeks. We made syrup one spring from the maple sap. Lots of work.

In the area I live we can sell off part of our land because we are farm land. Now who knows what will happen as a wealthy mans lives next door on one section of land and he knows all the lawyers, judges and they all hunt on his land, so if he ever decides he is tried of it all..who knows what law will be bent for him.

D

We bought here because we loved the open space after living 30 years+ in SO Cal...

D

flowergir1

Marilla sounds wonderful! Maple syrup making can take the wall paper right off the wall but it tastes sooo good.

We make our own pickles still, bread and butter pickles are our favorite. We use a pea fence to grow our own cucumbers vines upwards in the raised bed for pickle making. The fence keeps the wet off the cumcumbers. We must have had a few Marilla pickles though because we do buy sour pickles and sweet relish.

Hope irislover dee's neighbor is not of the mind to develop the land. At least in our town unless they get a payoff, or a state law gets invoked for trailors, 300 ft frontage is the minimum you can have and the watersheds and wetlands have to be protected so the realestate persons can break up the land into so many parcels for we are on top of an underground lake, river and the wetlands are on part of the lands of one of my neighbors. It ihas a brook on it that my road get it's name from, Pinkham Brook, this part is zoned for protection.

The land across the road from us the person who owns it lives in Massachusetts and so far for nearly forty years chooses not to develop it so we see woods where a blueberry and strawberry field once was.

We grow our own blueberries, high bush and strawberries in a pyramid and if that is not enough some years we go pick in a special farm that sells all you can pick yourself deal. My choice of birthday cake is sort of unusual. I ask for strawberry shortcake with real whipped cream some years. I make the shortcake part from scratch. We pick the berries and freeze them and serve when ready throughout the year.

I use the labels for the veggie garden. I just remembered I must get some more in fact because I stole them from the veggie garden to finish my iris labeling this fall.

I will get to see how well the brother p-touch labels with the laminated Tz tape held up over winter probably when the snow leaves this April. The coldest temp we got this winter was minus 23 degrees for close to a week, not the usual temp for us, normally it is warmer but it can get down to minus 45 degrees which is very rare but it last happed in 1978.

February usually stops the arctic below zero stuff for us and it is almost here. i can't wait for spring though.

Grin.

Strawberry shortcake yum......, nice to see ya Julianna coming out of hiberation are you

Thanks Joe. Nice to hear from you too.

Had a lot happen this year to make me rather busy. Several funerals about four happened within the family including someone we cared about in the family being shot by his wife, my grandmother's granddaughter, because she was signing the final divorce papers when her ex husband went off his meds and went nuts. He held a gun on his ex wife, and threatened to do bad things to her like cut off her fingers and if she called for help he would kill his father in law or anyone that went near the house.

She is safe now and getting counseling and we are just stunned and recovering. The grandchildren of this man all had birthdays around Christmas time so my grandmother combined them in one big party trying to get things to normal again afther his funeral. We knew it would be a rough time for my grandmother and that going to a party with no camera she was. We thought good memories of the children at the party and tellig them that grandfather was ill would start the healing process. It was a bummer Christmas for grandmother until she saw the digital camera we gave her with the learing how to use it lessons before the birthday party. Now we will teach her how to put the pics on a CD. She is 86 and last year we taught her how to use a computer that we bought for her.

It was her grandaughter that was held at gun point until he let down his guard and she got the gun from him. Before this happened the grandaughters mother died from complications from a blood tranfusion that was contaminated before the safety regulations were in effect. Took a long illness before she died so we were expecting it. and her father in law died natural causes because he was in his nineties. it was a shock for all of us for theex husband appeared a nice person on his meds but there were times off them he caused trouble and she had enough of it. He couldn't handle her getting the last of her stuff when she was moving out for good. Told she was not leaving the house except in a body bag and she made sure she got out alive. Happened around Thanksgiving time so we are thankful no one but the husband died.

Dad in Sept was needing a knee replacement that went incredibly well and he is doing fine. So yeah, I was hibernating.

Sorry guys for this outburst. Back to happier stuff like flowers but that is why I have not been poking around Daves Garden's community section before now

Julianna.

Sorry to hear that all that happened and am glad to hear again from you.

wow! very sorry to hear about that. hope you can put it behind you and enjoy spring flowers!

Thanks joe and flowergirl1,

I am okay really, but the other family members that need time to heal.They are the ones I am dealing with so the flowers are like a tonic to me and so are the friends I find here in Dave's Garden. I know I am never alone here, someone is always caring and saying the right things when you need it most.

Julianna

Let's hope for a better year coming up for you and your family.

I've ordered from this company and was really happy with my plant tags. You just use a pen to imprint the information on the metal tag and use the metal twist tie to attach it. No writing to fade. The only thing I might try differently is use a stronger/longer material to attach the tag.

This is the marker page at the Mountain Valley Grower's site. The tags I ordered are the last item on the page:
50 Aluminum Identification Markers w/ ties $5.95

http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/labels.htm

Thanks, dmac. Those do look like they would work. You would just have to make sure they got moved to new leaves when the old ones died. Not too hard, though. And maybe get some good wire for ties.

Dmac,

This is a good price for the aluminum tags. In the garden stores here they run $7.99/50 I buy them and staple them to 1.5 inch wide survey stakes which don't seem to rot, even in wet clay soil, don't pop out in frost heaving, and don't come out when someone, or a deer, trips over them (like the metal stakes do). Home Depot carried the aluminum labels one year for a little bit less, but they discontinued this item in 2008. The metal twisties get brittle and break after a year here.

Obviously I can't read the labels when the tags are on the opposite side from where I'm working, so I use a paint pen on vinyl mini-blinds and stick these in the ground on the backside of the stakes...this keeps the vinyl from getting brittle from sun rays and also from getting stepped on. So far I haven't had to replace either one (this will be my 4th year). I can make these during TV commercials.

A popular hybridizer uses the weatherproof Avery mailing labels so I'm going to give those a try as they are considerably less expensive that the Ptouch tape. I also have the prerequisite laser printer (I have a kit to resupply my toner which saves cost). Using the mailing labels will allow me to create inexpensive labels on vinyl miniblind slats for use in the pots I donate to various fundraisers.

Next year, I'll let you know how this works.

That was the only problem I had with them too. I figure if I find something else to use that I can cut to a longer length and have it be loose enough to encircle the base of the fan. I'm thinking something plastic or vinyl like that green stretch tie stuff. Luckily I don't have a ton to have to label and I keep a fairly detailed map for the ground plantings and the potted TB's aren't hard to keep track of:)

I have found the ptouch with the TZ tape to be the absolute best. But the tape can be expensive. I have found it on ebay, or here's a good place to get it. We did a co-op with them at one time, and they were great. It also helps if you set the ptouch to print in one continuous line, and don't put spaces between the names and cut it yourself, if you want to save money.

Here's Wanda showing how to do it.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/585902/

http://www.ecomofficesupplies.com/

This message was edited Feb 1, 2009 11:25 PM

Oh my gosh, and I thought Elk, Deer, Cattle, Skunk, Raccoon, Fox, Coyote, Porcupine, Squirrel and Chipmunk were bad enough. Moose would be the last straw!

Hi, hope you don't mind an intruder from Northern Arizona butting in on your blog. I wanted to let you know what we have experienced with the label problem. Not having as many Iris as the rest of you, and only being able to afford 'cheap' ones, we have used the plastic ones as shown in the pic. Of course they get snapped off, but there is usually no problem with the labeling. I have used a P-Touch for years to mark my plants and haven't had much problem with fading. The P-Touch I have now is an old 1180 and I use just the regular tape in it. I didn't even know about the outdoor tape, so thank you so much for mentioning it. We live at 7,000 feet, so when that sun shines, it can get really hot at times, but not like the desert floor in the Phoenix Valley.

This message was edited Feb 12, 2009 6:01 PM

join in! I have been watcing amazon like a hawk. they are sold out of the p touch 2700 so i am waiting patiently for more to show up. my tax money will be here friday and hopefully then i can get the labeler and labels!

I agree with 2chance...
I'm not going to put markers in the garden...just map them out in my gardening journal...

I got my 1700 at Office Depot.

I had good luck with the ecom office supply. I called them and said I was a member of DG, and they had done a co-op with us in the past, and they gave me a good deal on the new ptouch.

http://www.ecomofficesupplies.com/category~categoryID~260.html

They have it for 90.50. I bet they will give you something off if you call. I remember I spoke to Larry. He was the nicest man.

Good to know, Polly. I order tape from them a while back. They were good for that, too. Hopefully I won't need a new ptouch anytime soon, but at the rate I have been ordering iris, I suppose it is possible that I will.

amazon and ebay have better prices over all. You just have to keep your eyes open for the best deals.