I had a great time at my Saturday workshops on "recording" the garden and people seemed to find the experience useful. And just as I hoped, there was a lot of sharing of tips and techniques for keeping track of our gardens. Here are a few of the things that surfaced at the workshops that I thought might be of use to other gardeners.
Recording on paper vs. online: The dozen gardeners who came to the workshops were different ages and levels of experience, but it turned out that just about everyone used some kind of paper record-keeping — index cards, journals, notebooks — even if they did most of their note-taking on the computer. I think that was a surprise to all of us.
Use Pinterest as a garden shopping tool: Make a Pinterest board for each garden bed or project. Include images of the what the garden bed looks like now, along with any inspirational ideas that show what you are hoping to achieve. Use this board as the spot to put pictures of all the plants you want to buy for the area. Since you can access Pinterest from anywhere on your various devices, you will always have all this information with you when you go plant shopping. You can show it to nursery staff if they don't know the plant or need more info.
What's in a name: I suggested that garden "records" should tell the story of your garden. They don't just need to be lists of plants and projects. One of the other gardeners noted that she names her garden beds but they all have a personal story and connections. It hadn't occurred to her before our gathering that the names of the different areas could tell that story, rather than being based on location or the type of plants growing there.
Organizing information by area vs. the entire garden: I happen to have an old library card catalog so I keep track of my plants via an index card for each one. They are filed alphabetically by botanical name. Another gardener uses an accordion folder for each area/bed in her garden. In it she puts all the plant tags, index cards with information for each plant and any other information she wants to keep. If she moves a plant from one bed to another, she moves the card from its current folder to the folder for its new location. I thought this was a pretty efficient and effective system, especially if your garden has clearly delineated beds and areas.
The downsides of 3-Ring Binders: Most of the gardeners who came to the workshops all used binders for various garden records and tasks. But one of the gardeners mentioned that she finds that once something gets put in a plastic sleeve in a binder, it never leaves. I think she's absolutely correct. I have a garden binder that has some great magazine clippings of garden ideas that I will never do. But inertia keeps them in the binder. And we all agreed that a binder is not easy to schlep around the garden making notes in place.
I thought Mark or I would take some pictures while everyone was here, but it did not happen. The groups spent the better part of two hours looking at my Keynote presentation, asking questions of me and each other and making suggestions. Then we spent half an hour looking at all the various record-keeping methods I showed them in the pictures in person.
These are some great ideas. I like the plant tag one one but I'm afraid once they went in that would be it. Maybe a different folder for each bed with a label on the front. Oh well, I can dream - maybe someday I'll have all the information organized.
Posted by: Barbara H. | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 08:12 AM
I think she had info on the front about which bed the folder was for. Some people put their plant tags in baggies based on which garden bed it was in or on type of plant like trees, perennials etc.
Posted by: Linda Brazill | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 08:25 AM
I'd never thought of using Pinterest for various beds. What a great idea. I suppose that various boxes, plant pots, and vases stuffed with plant tags and scattered around the house and greenhouse don't really count as an organizational tool. Your skill at documenting your garden is impressive!
Posted by: Peter/Outlaw | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 09:42 AM
You'll be glad to know I showed a photo of my plant pots stuffed with plant tags. Surprising how many folks kept their tags and not just temporarily.
Posted by: Linda Brazill | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 09:55 AM
I keep my plant tags too. I staple them into the back of the Year Journal I am working on. Then I type into a word file the tags where things are planted etc. I keep it fairly well updated. We have one of those old card files. It is stuffed with all of Gary's slides. I would consider doing a card for each plant if there was room for me to have a drawer or two. No such luck unless we can come up with another card catalog section.
Your day sounds like it was fun and informative.
Posted by: Lisa at Greenbow | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 11:24 AM
Our slides are beautifully cross-referenced in archival slide boxes. The hours I spent doing that and now I go digital if I do a presentation. I keep thinking I will go through the slides and get digital files made of our favorites.
Posted by: Linda Brazill | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 12:56 PM
That's one of the main uses of Pinterest for me, and was a real breakthrough when beginning to refresh different sections of the garden after a decade of neglect.
The board for each section contains not only the plants currently growing there, but also candidates for adding to it. Oh, and also Those No Longer With Us...
Posted by: Nell | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 02:37 PM
Does anyone use spreadsheets? Early exposure to ss and databases via election campaigns and organizing doomed me to be the "computer person" in a succession of non-profits and garden clubs. (Thankfully, that's mostly a bygone era.) But one advantage of spreadsheets is that a lot of information over many seasons can be stored in a single file, and easily retrieved. That includes the vendor or source, and names & other info on the plant tags -- which allows them to be tossed.
My main recording method is still a paper-and-pen garden journal, a composition book (binders, even the narrowest ones, have the major drawback that pages are removable, hence lose-able).
Posted by: Nell | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 02:55 PM
Most of us were not using Pinterest for more than ideas so that was a real breakthrough idea. Also I have a board dedicated to my garden which some people had not thought of either.
Posted by: Linda Brazill | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 03:31 PM
Only a couple of people used spread sheets and they also used assorted paper note-keeping methods as well. I admitted that the blog functions as a spreadsheet for me in general. I think for those of us addicted to paper, making a serious switch to the computer is slow.
Posted by: Linda Brazill | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 03:35 PM
It sounds like a productive session. I try to keep a record of everything I plant in an Excel spreadsheet organized by broad areas, all of which I've named in terms meaningful to myself if not others. I keep tags only until the plants are included in my electronic file. As my updates tend to be delayed, planting dates are often estimated but close enough to be useful for general reference. However, my biggest failure is file maintenance (e.g. to show fatalities and any possible explanations for these).
Posted by: Kris P | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 06:04 PM
Most of us felt our biggest issue was keeping track of plants we’d moved.
Posted by: Linda Brazill | Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 08:40 PM
Linda, thanks for sharing all the different ways that you remember your garden through writing, drawing, and collecting. I plan to try to merge my garden documentation with my art documentation--they are so related, I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Really nice to hear what others document and why. Truly, a work in progress.
Posted by: Marty Petillo | Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 09:13 PM