I can't decide. I'm contemplating taking pics from the top of a ladder and then typing the name of the plant on top of the plant in the photo. Whatever I'm doing, I need to do it fast before everything goes dormant. LOL

I keep a list in Excel and label at the plant itself.

Just curious Popmama, do your labels stay out through the winter?

I take pictures of each variety in each distinctive garden ,from which I build an inventory list. Each plant has a permanent aluminum marker stamped with the name that stays in the ground. I also name each hosta in a app called photo manager pro.

Yes, my labels stay out through the winter. I use a few different kinds from simple plastic ones, to aluminum ones, to these fancier ones that I was buying from hostasdirect. It looks like those are no longer available. I use P-Touch with the Xtreme label tape. I've been using the tape for about 4 years and have not seen any peeling or fading at all.

i also used permanent markers in the garden ... with brothers ptouch UV tapes... 20 years later ......they are still out there even if the hosta is long dead.. lol ..

so bed A row 2 5th deep would have been A-2-5 ..... etc ...

in tricky beds.. where i didntcouldnt do such .... i might take pics with garden art ... or even just rocks ... so if i had a nice piece of amethyst .... i knew the hosta around it .... as such.. the location code for this bunch might be just a certain bed ... since the beds were small and random ... so if you were standing on the back porch/.deck ... you might have a north.. east and west bed ... immediately starting with 3 different locations... etc ....

i also took a pic of every hosta .. and labeled the pic with the name and date .. for ease of finding the file ... GoldStandard 061019 ... so all of my gold standard pix... sorted in memory by date .... but some of those pix were of surrounding plants ... so if i had to find what was just to the right of a ten foot rule plant... i could look up the one everyone knew the name of ...

i also used permanent markers in the garden ... with borthers ptouch UV tapes... 20 years later ......they are still out there even if the hosta is long dead.. lol ..

Ken, what actually did happen to your hostas ?

I am too trying to figure out my system.

I have aluminum I.D. markers next to each plant, and have a map drawn in Photoshop, plus a list of all my hostas and heuchies.

I have don’t know how to use photoshop. You have to buy the app???

" i also used permanent markers in the garden ... with borthers ptouch UV tapes... 20 years later ......they are still out there even if the hosta is long dead.. lol .. ".

hahaha Same

Even with the permanent metal markers AND a plastic one buried at "3:00", I think I better do a map.

I know them all by memory.....no list.

I have a list of my hosta on a spreadsheet. I note name, size, price, location, # of eyes etc. I am cheap-----so I generally use plastic window blinds for labelling. I have more hosta in pots than I do in the ground, but each of them get a label. For the ones in the ground I try to put the label in a certain location and then it gets buried. Each of the labels has the name, year I got it, and the number of eyes for each year I have it until I can count no more!

I am now able to take photos of the garden and put the name of the hosta right on the picture. I really like that feature.

Mikgag, don’t know how old you are, but I hope that keeps working for you. Every Spring, I need a fresher course......lol

newhostalady—-I do the same thing on my iPad, edit and put the name in.

I just tried to edit a spelling error on my post and it blew it away ! Now it’s back! Wow

crazy Houzz......sunnywood were you going to share your system?

it is basically described above. If you want more details say so.

50.....and back when I had 411 different hostas, I still knew every one by heart, where it was and where I got it. Down to 283 varieties now, so it's a little easier. Can't remember what I had for breakfast tho......

Sonnywood, i’ve had a bad day........sorry I didn’t go back and look at previous comments. No I don’t have any Questions.Your markers must go inches down into the ground and I assume they are box like and sit on or just above the ground. Great system!!

mikgag— you must have a photographic memory!

I keep an Excel spreadsheet and create a little map with a couple letters in the map for each plant and their full name near it. Next year I'm hoping to label everything. The Brother PTouch sounds like a good idea.

Dian——your story is soooo funny, but it‘s exactly what a young child would do....lol

steve that layout is impressive. I see where you have listed plant in the grid, and seethe numbers for each hosta, but where are the numbers on your grid? Or are the numbers in a card file?

These two pictures show how I keep track of my garden. The first pic shows a folder for each distinctive garden. The second pic shows all of the cultivars in garden two. From all of the garden plant pics I create an inventory of all of the cultivars. I repeat this each year so I can see progress or not.

The photos are organized in an app called photo manager pro. Each plant has a permanent stamped marker made of aluminum. This on an iPad Pro.

I Actually could do this on my desktop, I think. Thanks for being more specific. The visuals are very helpful.

Like Mikgag, I also know them from memory. To be fair, I have under 200. I believe Mikgag has a lot more hostas than that.

Oh my goodness, you guys have some very serious hosta-recording systems! Djacobz, Photoshop is a program published by Adobe. These days, you don't buy software like that, you pay a monthly fee to sort of "rent" it. I guess having only about 40 hostas is not worthy of such elaborate records. I don't bother to keep track of who I bought the hosta from or how many eyes it has. I'm a small enough operation to just mentally keep track of which variety is doing well (like Marilyn Monroe, bless her little green heart) and which variety is a stinker (like Sparkler). Works for me!

I keep an excel spreadsheet with the cultivar name, date, place purchased and price. Also update it occasionally if it dies or seems to have any other problems.

I also made a little map with excel for each bed and area.

In the past I have used the cheap plastic markers and sharpie but they need to be renewed at least every year. I also have several painted stones but they get moved around easily.

This year I am trying something different with physical labels. I've got some nice flat stones, painted the hosta name on them (not a very good artist), drilled a hole and screwed them to a 3/8" dowel. Only going to do a few and see how they survive the winter.

Your excel map reminds me of my drawn one, only way better......hahaha! I love the rock and dowel idea! If you’re successful, you can sell them to us on the HL!! Lol

Here is what I ended up doing:

I took a pic of each bed in sections. I would take an overall section shot and then take a photo of each plant "in order" (whatever that means hahaha) with the tag in the pic also. I uploaded to Facebook photo albums. So, for example, the bed under the Walnut tree is "Walnut bed"....overall pic of a section and then pics of the individual plants....move to the next area...overall pic and individual pics. Anything that was hard to read, I just added a caption to the pic on FB. Worked like a charm, was fast and easy!

Thanks ademink, I am not on FB but I could do the same by taking photos and entering them into my desktop where I can also create folders.