Tuesday, August 12, 2014

To Label or Not to Label: That is the Question

A recent post on Danger Garden asked about labels on plants in private gardens and a recent conversation I had with a garden visitor had me thinking recently about putting labels on plants.


In a garden open to the public and especially in botanical gardens (where this is almost a must) this is fine and absolutely helpful to the visitor. But what about a private garden?

A couple of days ago a garden visitor, after seeing a few plant labels in our garden said in a nice jest that we're too young to have plant labels in our garden. I gave her a light tap on the shoulder and said that she was not meant to take note or even see those labels. They are either tucked right down the sides of the pot or underneath it, tag hidden amongst the foliage or at the base of the plant, or label pushed all the way down near the plant with the top part (just enough so I can lift them up again easily) hidden under a mulch or leaf litter. I told her those labels are meant to remind us and not a visitor. Then she claims that she's exactly the same hence she knows where to look for them. Great minds think alike and even better that she called me young (which I take with a pinch of salt).

Can you spot the labels? They are there, somewhere...
But our memories are not as young, accurate, nor photographic as we'd want them to be and we do need those labels to remind ourselves once in a while what they are. And also to avoid confusion and mis-identification especially if a plant looks very similar to others in the garden.

So yes, we have labels on some of the plants in our garden (even more so in the greenhouse but I suppose that doesn't count) but none of them are prominently displayed. 

Labelling in the greenhouse and stock plants, a different matter...
In some private gardens though plant labels are displayed prominently. Is this a good thing or not?

I'd say it depends on the garden, on the situation, and how it is done...

On the whole I'd say I'm not in favour of seeing prominent plant labels on private gardens. But this is a slightly complicated subject that needs further explaining.

Most of our plant labels are not out in the garden but in a plastic box
When we visit a garden and spot some plant labels and labelling it is easy enough to tell whether the labels exist to mainly help the garden owner in remembering what those plants are, as well as consequently informing visitors of the plant's identity. Usually those labels are discreetly positioned, likely on the small side, or tucked somewhere within the vicinity of the plant in a position that is inconspicuous so as not to distract from the main attraction - the plant or the the vista where that plant is located. Even if plant labels are hidden some visitors are determined enough that, like the lady I mentioned above, almost by intuition know where these labels could be hidden and manage to find them despite the owner's attempt at discretion. 


Gardens with these sort of labelling I find are fine, tasteful, and even occasionally endearing as it humanises them. That they are just like most of us, may own a garden but does not always remember each and every plant in it by its botanical name.

Pushed all the way down...
Some private gardens however cannot resist the lure of putting prominent tags on some of their plants especially for the days when they open their garden. We've even seen a couple of gardens before wherein each and every plant they have has a very visible label on it. Helpful perhaps but personally I'm not keen on this sort of plant labelling.

Depending on the situation, prominence, and degree of labelling, for me it can come across as pretentious, patronising, and most important of all, distracting. 

Again, I'd like to emphasise, depending on the situation but why pretentious? Dog tagging a few plants with botanical names, does it imply that the private garden also moonlights as a botanical garden, and the owner is botanically intelligent? No need to even do that if that's the case. The variety of planting, combination, and health of the plants will speak volumes about the skill and intelligence of the gardener. No need for a few 'steel plant necklaces' to do that.

Patronising? Not all of the time of course but to be honest, of private gardens that do put on large labels on some of the plants they usually put it on the most commonly available ones, and funny enough rarely on the obscure. In our experience, of the exotic plants in the UK the most commonly and proudly (and even solely) prominently labelled plant in a garden is....


Trachycarpus fortunei

Sometimes it's accompanied by it's common name and a little description too like...


Trachycarpus fortunei
Chusan Fan Palm
The Hardy Fan Palm
From China but hardy in the UK

Trachycarpus fortunei - a favourite plant to be labelled in open gardens
Or variations of the same theme. It makes me giggle whenever I spot such prominent labelling in gardens. But hey I'm sure this is still helpful to some so why not?

A little tip, if you still go for prominent labelling especially only on days that you open your private garden and show it to groups of people, know your audience first. The more experienced the group is, the likelihood of impressing by putting on special labels will be less. You may gain impression points though if you do so for the rarities.

What about distracting? Well you have this beautiful plant, in what could have been a beautiful vignette, save for the one or several wooden/plastic/slate/white/black/copper/steel labels jutting up from the scene. And too much labelling can quickly turn a garden into looking more like a nursery (except none of the plants are for sale). Walking through, you get more of a feel like you're walking through a garden shop or a garden show rather than a...garden.

My favourite memory of such an inappropriately, over labelled garden was one that has a rather large patch of land covered in wildflowers and is 'naturalistic' in style, and yet there were so many labels jutting out from the meadow indicating what each and every wildflower was in there. Not that naturalistic then. I'm sure those labels didn't just sprout on their own and came with the wildflower meadow seed mix that was sown there in the spring....

But then again, it all depends on the garden, sometimes having lots of labels can look right too. Usually these gardens are the 'collection showcase' types and great ones we've seen have showcased impressive and very vast collections of particular of plants like alpines, succulents,fuchsias, and snowdrops. 

Oops, too proud, must push it down...
Usually in these types of gardens plants, planted out or under large greenhouses, are arranged in very neat orders, long rows or clustered/grouped together depending on their classification for ease of comparison. The impact of these gardens rely mostly on the impressiveness of the quantity of the collection, to overwhelm the spectator with the vastness of the collection that are often in peak at the same time. And as part of the neatness and order of the display each and every plant will be labelled. In these situations over labelling actually looks right and even appropriate. 

So, back to the title of this post, to label or not to label, that is the question. What are your thoughts about it?

Before I finish this post off, at the risk of rambling too much, a few thoughts that also came to mind was, on the occasions we have visitors in the garden and show our garden to groups of people we both thoroughly enjoy sharing our passion and the human interactions we gain from the visit. We both enjoy it when a guest would get intrigued by a plant or two they spot but are not familiar with then asks us a question about its identity. If we know from the top of our head we say so and the follow up conversation that stems out from it becomes an instrument for sharing and gaining more knowledge, as well as strengthening friendships.


And if we don't know it's identity but know there's a label there somewhere we simply say, come let's both go over there and find the tag together. Then we talk about the plant together and bond over a mutual interest while holding a piece of plastic with a botanical name written on it.

Mark :-)

38 comments :

  1. Your idea of hiding them is probably the best one, I hate to see them on show.
    If I label something in the garden quite often it goes missing. I'm sure the birds pinch them. Or maybe it's those wretched squirrels that have a nest full somewhere. These days I keep labels in a box. And then of course have to remember where everything is. Thank goodness for a blog!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Blogs are handy for remembering plants aren't they Jessica? We lose some of our hidden tags sometimes, I think squirrels are to blame....

      Delete
  2. A very thought - provoking post, and one to which I can't decide where I stand ! If I am in a garden, the first thing I want to know is the name of an unknown plant, which is fine if the owner is around ... In my own garden, I agree with you that labels need to be discreet. Nothing spoils planting more than great big intrusive labels. But ... I can't remember all my plants, and lots of the roses are quite similar. I get round it by keeping a garden Journal and doing planting plans, where all key plants are named, and their position noted. When we opened for the NGS I was worried that very knowledgeable gardeners would expect everything to be labelled, but not one person commented on the lack of labels.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jane, glad to hear you didn't get any remarks for the lack of labelling during your open day :) I suppose you can gauge a situation whether it will be appropriate or not, but discreet labelling you can't go wrong with.

      Delete
  3. I certainly do appreciate labels on other's gardens, but I just can't see myself doing it. Plus I'm tired of raccoons pulling the hidden tags out of the soil, and attaching them to the plants is too much effort (and ugly). I like your thought of the interaction that the Q & A provides, although if I had more visitors to my garden I'm sure it would get a bit tiresome. I've often thought about labeling my bamboos though...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Raccoons as label snatchers, we have squirrels doing that here, and birds. It may be a good idea Alan with the bamboos, plain green ones can get difficult to tell apart.

      Delete
  4. I take the same approach as you--I hide the tag against the pot so no one can see it but I can reference it. I really think a lot of people think that prominent display is what your supposed to do. I'm a brat and I pull out markers in street plantings. Does anyone need a tag to remember that those were cheap bedding marigolds from the hardware store?

    I said it on Loree's post too, but I think open gardens are a chance to interact with the gardener! The tag always lies anyway. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Totally unnecessary isn't it Heather, putting labels on cheap common bedding plants. The interaction you get from guests are great, and having some mystery in the garden by having hidden or no labels certainly does help in fostering this :)

      Delete
  5. I try to hide my tags like you do on plants that I know that I'll forget. However, there are some ephemerals that I have forgotten and dug up when bringing a new plant home and noticing the empty spot so now I have a few labels showing to protect dormant plants.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A little or marker certainly does help in remembering where you put ephemerals in Petet. Prevents the 'oops I just spaded a wanted plant' accident from happening.

      Delete
  6. I'd say it's a matter of personal preference. I'd never label my in-ground plants in a conspicuous way, but I do tuck plant labels into pots. They are meant just for me, not for visitors (I don't have many anyway). When you have many similar-looking varieties of a plant, tags really help.

    For larger in-ground plants, I have aluminum tags you tie to a branch or stem although I don't use them as much as I used to (I bought them specifically for bamboos, which are often hard to tell apart).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True Gerhard. Same as you I try to label as many potted plants as I could, especially in the greenhouse. But this is mainly for our benefit. Aluminium labels can look very smart :)

      Delete
  7. Thoughtful post Mark..I used to label all my roses many years ago--though there was no chance I'd forget thier name (a bit of a collector I was) I liked to be reminded of their date of introduction.I used zinc tags at the base . The only thing in the garden that I label now are the Lilys...partially because I keep buying more and often forget the names of the more 'impulse purchases and partially to make sure I know where they are .I do the same as you for containers, push the label way down. Sometimes I will replace the nursery label with a pencil written popsicle stick , which always seems to me a bit less intrusive-this would be in the a case where the plant is new to me and I might want is to be visible to help me memorize the cultivar.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Labelling is so useful Kathy, wouldn't be without them but yes placed discreetly if I have to have them out in the garden. With having so many plants it's so hard to keep track of them without labelling.

      Delete
  8. I do some of my things but not all. My Hosta collection definitely has them. Too easy to forget which is which when looking, although I'm better now with them. It does help to remember which cultivar I am looking at because I would have forgotten some of them. :)
    Cher Sunray Gardens

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With having a collection Cher, it's almost essential to have them labelled. Discreetly preferably :)

      Delete
  9. So glad you took this subject and expanded on it. It's the distracting thing that gets to me most. I find myself picturing their living room with tags still on the throw pillows, furniture and curtains (must remember where I bought those and how much I paid) or I feel like I'm at a nursery, not in a private garden. Of course none of this applies in a botanical garden, they are supposed to have easy to read and well placed labeling, at least in my opinion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ditto Loree :) sometimes when I see a garden that has so many prominent labels on their plants I wonder if the furnishings on their home has labels and price tags too. Haughty thoughts! Too many labels out and proud give more of a feeling of a shop than a garden.

      Delete
  10. Quite a thoughtful post Mark. I think tags look bloody awful with the minor exception of botanical gardens but how the hell do we remember the names without them. In my case I bury labels and as a final resort I will have to excavate to find them. Most of us can usually remember the first bit or letter of a plant so a complete alphabetical list of every plant in a garden is a big help. There should be a high tech solution to this problem? Bury a sim card with each plant and point your iPhone at it. I shall go away now and work on an appropriate App. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha! But actually that's not a bad idea at all Don. Imagine just pushing a chip in then have a portable scanner that you point on the ground and detects where plants are placed and their identity. If you develop something we'll be the first in line!

      I used to do a plant database but quickly gave up on it. Our planting changes and increases quite quick so updating it became tedious and boring. I suppose good old fashioned labelling but placed discreetly is still the way to go :)

      Delete
  11. I only label those plants that I know I will forget such as my collection of epimediums which all look the same at certain times of the year. I use black labels with silver. This works as the black doesnt shout at you like white labels. I have also heard that some people put the label in the planting hole under the plant so you know what it is when you dig it up.
    I have visited a couple of gardens where a planting plan was available which might be good for your garden - just an idea

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Black labels with silver ink actually looks very smart Helen! Planting plan or map is not a bad idea at all especially for large gardens. I toyed with the idea before but quickly realised it's not that applicable as we constantly add plants in the garden and modify things a bit quite regularly.

      Delete
  12. Great post! You had me giggling. I completely agree with you, and the way you have them pushed right in is great. "Oops.. too proud, must push it down" haha...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Amy! I actually had the Salt-n-Pepa song Push It in mind when I captioned that photo...

      Delete
  13. A very thoughtful post, I'm a "stick the label down in the soil" kind of person. I do like to keep the labels on my newer 'impulse' purchases so I can remember what they are. I've got so many tropical plants in containers I'd never remember all of them so do keep labels for my information. It's also, as you said, helpful to have them available for when a like minded garden friend asks what something is and your memory temporarily fails (happens to me more frequently that it used to these days)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Labels are great things Deanne, especially if you have lots of plants and pots in the garden. The more plants you have the more difficult it gets to remember them all so yes labels are almost necessary. Not always for the outside though especially prominent ones, and lots of it that they become distracting. Unless they are discreetly hidden like you do :)

      Delete
  14. Labels in the garden never, in pots, sometimes, pushed down along the side as far as they will go. And I wish I kept more of the labels with the potted plants, since now I have no idea which two cyrtanthus I have. A vexing problem without easy solution. Now that I think of it, my family would probably have appreciated the garden more if I tagged everything. My youngest son is working in a nursery and told me when he was tasked to take a customer to the euphorbias, he was thrilled to realize he actually knew what they looked like. He could have learned a lot more by now if I had used tags! But the ugliness of it all, little white plastic tombstones dotted throughout the garden....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are handy Denise but in general private gardens are aesthetically better without labels. Glad to hear your son has taken some learning and influence from you :)

      Delete
  15. I found some very handsome copper tags that attach to the plants with copper wire. The plant name gets engraved on the tag with a stylus. They are very unobtrusive reminders for the memory challenged. It's kind of odd the plants I have trouble remembering: like Liriope, for Pete's sake.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For a tag the copper ones sound elegant Ricki!

      Delete
  16. Having prominent name tags in a private garden is like asking guests to wear name tags to your wedding, but tags discreetly hidden in pots are a different matter. With bromeliads or orchids quite a few look alike when they're not in flower so a tag is essential. Come to think of it - if you have lots of relatives that all look alike ......

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So true! And you just my imagination run Missy, of weddings and name tags...

      Delete
  17. For some reason, labels in pots don't bother me but labels in a landscape setting do - probably because the latter interfere with the eye's progress in scanning the landscape, whereas pots beg for more singular focus. I'm afraid I have a pile of labels in a basket like the box you showed. At intervals, I try to record the information in the basket in an Excel file and throw the labels away but time can get away from me and those labels accumulate all too fast...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Same thoughts here Kris. Large labels tends to interfere with the vista of a landscape. Great idea with the excel but it can get tedious especially if you buy lots of plants regularly, and let go of them too...

      Delete
  18. A most thought provoking post. I use labels in my pots of special snowdrops as otherwise I would be snookered when they are dormant - black labels and either silver/white pen. Other than that they are limited to the greenhouse to identify seedlings. I have mixed feelings about their use if I am visiting gardens. Although not always aesthetically pleasing they can be most useful if there's nobody around to ask the name of that must have plant. Labelled or without I think that consistency is an important factor.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I think prominent labels are distracting and can ruin the garden's ambiance. I don't have labels in my garden, but there have been times I wished I had! My memory seems to fail at the most inconvenient times. I once saw a garden in which the plants' names were written on smooth stones tucked in next to the plants. I think I may do that in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I recall some years ago when I was showing the canna collection at one of the RHS Shows. I was proud of the display and hoped for a Gold but only got a Silver Gilt. One of the judges came round and asked if I wanted to know why I hadn't got a Gold. He bent down and peered amongst the foliage and said 'If you look down there you can just see a white label you have forgotten to hide'. I was furious! I like to think that now I'm a judge myself that we are not quite so pernickety!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Too many tags makes a bed look like a miniature graveyard. I spotted a front garden recently where about 40 heather plants had all been put out, every single one accompanied by its labels. You couldn't see the plants for the plastic! We all need some reminders, though, unless we're assiduous record-keepers.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to reply to our post, we love reading comments and hearing your views.

Due to the increased level of spam, please note comments on older posts are moderated and only published after approval. All new comments are read and any spam is deleted.