Among my friends and family, I am justly renowned for remembering bits of trivia, for example: a 1 ½ inch, 16 thread Phillips head screw cost 0.00058 in 1978. It’s useless information now, but that’s the way my brain works. However, my brain doesn’t always work as well when it comes to remembering a hosta cultivar’s name or where I planted bulbs last fall.

I cringe to remember how often I would be enthusiastically digging with my hand trowel – only to slice into a hidden flower bulb. Ouch! Or, try to remember what, exactly, was the name of that cute little hosta?

What to do? Use labels! Easier said than done (of course). I was very reluctant to spend a whole lot of money on plant tags, since there are dozens and dozens of plants in need of labeling.

I first tried the plastic plant markers which came with the plants. That worked for a while, but then the wind would blow them away or they would get broken. Then I tried the markers that look something like plastic tongue depressors. They came with an “indelible” pen which faded out before the first season was over.

Next, I tried kind of expensive metal markers which came with another “indelible” pen. Guess what happened? Yup, the ink faded out even faster than the first one.

Wonderful Husband found some soft metal plant tags on the internet. I could “write” on them with a ball point pen. By firmly pressing down I could emboss the plant name, date planted, and any other information I needed, as long as it could fit on the tag. No fading out here!

These tags came with thin wires with which I could attach the tags to trees and shrubs, but that didn’t work so well for plants that die back every winter. Clearly, I would need to attach the metal tag to some sort of ground stake. Being “frugal”, I tried using the plastic tongue depressor markers left over from my first attempt. That worked pretty well, but the wind easily knocked them over or blew them away.

I thought about small diameter wooden dowel rods…but they would eventually rot. Anything else I could think to use was either temporary, a whole lot of work, a whole lot of money, or all three.

Finally, Wonderful Husband found the answer, but not in the gardening section! In the camping section of our local Rural King (one of my favorite places), he found long, sturdy, metal tent stakes – complete with a hole at the top to wrap the tag wire around! At 99 cents each, they were a perfect solution. I bought every stake in stock.

The tent stakes work great! They are nearly indestructible, recyclable, too heavy to be blown away by the wind, don’t rust and won’t rot. And, I can re-use them. Problem solved! See why I love my Wonderful Husband?

Stay green, good friends!