I'm trying my best to keep track of all my plants, but it's a little overwhelming!
Labels get lost, break, fade, get chewed on, and get moved around. Not to mention, they are a pain to make; you have to use fade-resistant markers or some other unrealistic material that hasn't yet been developed. Pencils work, but good luck finding plastic tags that you can write on with a pencil. Even if you use the elevated plastic engraved tags, as seen in the photo below, they are a pain to read and, despite their height, can quickly become engulfed in vegetation. They also can look cluttered in a "busy" garden.
Partially for aesthetic reasons, I've pretty much given up on tags for most of my in-ground plants. Though I do still keep labels on most of my containerized plants, especially ones that are unique or special to me in some way. I also keep labels on my new in-ground plants, but I don't go to the trouble of remaking them after they inevitably break or fade.
That being said, I foresee a time in the not-so-distant future that will make physical labeling obsolete. Many of us are already making this transition by using identification apps on our phones.
Of course, we have a long way to go. But unless our society collapses and we enter a 2nd Dark Age, which seems increasingly likely, we will soon have the ability to walk up to any plant in any part of the world and be confident that our technologies will be able to correctly identify plants down to the cultivar level! Our cameras will be able to detect such subtle differences in plants that our brains can't even dream of observing. Such is the power of AI and technology. It really blows my mind.
Yet I hope there still will be a need for us to develop the human-based skills of identification. Even though technology will always have the upper hand when it comes to technical things, we are still superior in developing an emotionally holistic relationship with our plants. We benefit from being emotionally connected to nature, and I hope we can always put down our phones and use our animal senses to appreciate our world.
So far, I have resisted the plant apps. But I see the writing on the wall and will probably upload one in the near future. Like electric cars, I'm waiting until the most glaring bugs are solved... well, if I could actually afford one!
Even if phone apps never attain the level of precision we desire, decoding DNA may soon become available to the general public. This technology would, in theory, enable me to keep track of the genetic lineage of all my Trilliums... I could tell from what population it originated, and how it's changed since being introduced into cultivation. Imagine being able to trace a plant back to a specific garden and see evolution in action!
So perhaps in the future, our gardens won't be cluttered with unsightly labels. And we have instantaneous and precise powers of identification and organization at our fingertips. I'm sure it's a long way off, but I'm kinda looking forward to not having to worry so much about making labels!
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