I collect plastic yogurt/sour cream/etc. containers and just cut strips from the sides (and the tops and bottoms); write the plant name on with an indelible felt pen (Sharpie) and stick the label in the side of the pot. I only use 4" pots, so it's pretty easy and is durable. These labels do fade in sunshine after a while, but when I plant things outside, I eventually get around to marking the plant names/positions on a map, and then I collect up and discard the old labels anyway.

Cut up venetian blinds. And I use pencil (#3 is best)...won't fade either, but still doesn't last forever.

I wouldn't have spent the money, but my mom got me plant markers as a present. They are rough white plastic and if you write on them in pencil it stays on all summer outside. I don't know how this is possible but it is true. And you can erase it too. They are about 4" long by 1/2" wide with a point at one end and a little hole in case you want to tie them on to a plant stem.

Venetian blinds sound like a good idea too if you have old blinds - don't know if I would sacrifice new ones :-]

Yes, I use venetian blinds too. Four years ago we put in some new windows, so now I have 3 sets of them to cut up. I've been using a laundry marker and they haven't faded a bit in 3 years. It's kind of late in the season, but I'd keep my eye out for blinds at yard sales.
I also have used milk jugs for cutting up too, but those are the ones I use to mark plants that I give away at our plant exchange.

Laurie

I use the venetian blinds too. Note: dark green doesn't work very well! :)

Ahhhhhh, I do have some venetian blinds that are old. I am planning to redo all the curtains but that was the only one that had blinds on it. I will look for a laundry marker too.

thanks! I hope to get a good head start on next years since this year we decided pretty late in spring t do a veggie garden.

Maria

For my roses and special plants, I bought quite a few wire stakes with copper plant labels that you engrave/indent with a ball point pen.

I also buy in bulk 5" white plastic labels for all my sowings and mark with a Sharpie, stick them deep in the soil so that the sun doesn't fade them. I also draw up maps.

Sharon

Because I work at Home Depot, I can find all the damaged or returned blinds I need. BTW, you could probably bring your old blinds in to a place like HD, and have them cut into pieces for you. That way you get the nice rounded end on each label. But if the cutting machine you use is anything like ours, the longest label that can be cut is about 3.5"(9cm) which is perfect for a 3 or 4 inch pot. You can have much longer labels, but you must first cut them manually, and then put them in the machine to get the rounded edge.

Rick

Rick, my DH works at Home Depot too! Well I guess a lot of North America does...

He doesn't get to take damaged stuff home though, I guess they're scared of people breaking stuff to take it. They can't even take pallet wood.

Bumping up an old thread.

First I tried the salvation army but they didn't have any. Not much happening for garage sales either in town.
I was at Wally-World today and found 2 odd size 1" white venetian blinds at clearance price. I've cut them into 4" tags and I can't believe how many I have!
I just saved myself some $ from buying another big bulk box of white labels, think I will buy some more lilies now ;)

Great tip!
Sharon

If you do not have any old venetian blinds of your own and the garage sale season is over, why not check out second hand stores? They quite often get in used blinds, the plastic and metal kinds. I have a friend who uses the metal ones and writes on them with some sort of a pencil.

Myself...I use the white plastic venetian blinds cut into 1 1/2" pieces to label the names for each of the perennials that I sell at the farmer's markets. I use a sharpie marker to write on them with. Here is a picture of some cuttings of sedums that I have going in the greenhouse right now so I can expand my number of plants of each sedum for my yard (and probably some for next year's farmer's markets). Notice the little name tags...

Here is a closer picture of the sedums just starting to make new growth.

I cut labels about 2" long to use for price tags and price each perennial with the venetian blind price tag. These price tags are removed when a customer buys my perennial and then I will reuse the tag the next week as I am dividing another perennial. At the end of the season I will take time some evening to wash the price tags, sort by amount and put them away with the rest of the farmer's market stuff for the winter.

All of these sedum/semp containers sold at the farmer's market this summer and so, I now have $7 price tags I can use next year when getting other planters ready.

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At the yearly plant garage sale, that my one of my girlfriends and I have had for the past 10 years, we each use different colored markers to mark the prices on the venetian blinds. She uses red marker and I use black. Laurie (Laurie_z3_MB)joined us last year and uses black marker but places an L on the price tag also. Then as each perennial sells the price tags get taken out, thrown into a bucket and at the end of the sale the money is divided according to the price tags. We do not have to keep track of any sales on paper and have found that this method is extremely accurate (who gets how much money) and fast (when customers are purchasing plants).

Personally, when I want a permanent price tag for a plant in my yard, whether it is a houseplant or a perennial, I use copper tooling. I cut the tooling into 2" x 1/2" pieces, hole punch a hole in one end, cut old wire hangers into 4-5" lengths with a wire cutter and then use pliers to twist the wire through the hole in the copper tooling tag. Later I press really hard as I am writing and place the name of the plant into the tooling and I now have a permanent tag for the garden. I push the wire into the ground behind the perennial to ground level so as to not take away from the perennial beds with seeing labels sticking up all over the place. But, when I want to see what its name is I just pull the tag out, clean it off and read the name on the tag. I have labelled almost all of my perennials now with this method and find that the labels will patina but I can still read the name years and years later because it is indented into the copper.

I also sell these at the farmer's markets for $.50 each so that others can label the plants permanently in their yards also.

Brenda