Using Labels For Hostas Will Help You Get Them Off to a Strong Start

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Hostas 1Hostas give that lush jungle feel to your garden. Different varieties mix shades of the darkest blackish greens with the lightest yellow-greens. They fill up flat corners with mounds of large spectacular leaves. Because most are generally shaped in those circular fountains of long-veined leaves, some people have a difficult time noticing that there are so many different species. Using labels for hostas will help you arrange your hostas in beautiful patterns, introduce them to friends and find them in the early spring as they emerge from the bare ground.

Grouping hostas together is an art. Small hostas look nicely grouped together so they are not overwhelmed by a large variety. When you arrange large and small hostas together, it’s nice to accent them around large rocks or other sculptural garden art pieces. Hostas soften edges with their cascading leaves. Use them to cover the 90-degree corners of porch or patio steps, tuck them between tall late summer bloomers to hide the flowers’ bare “legs” or use a large lush hosta as the anchor plant to welcome people into your garden.

In the fall, after the growing season, many people cut away old frost-bitten hosta leaves to the ground. With no woody material left behind, hostas don’t have their own natural marker of where they’ll appear in the spring. Hostas might be hard to see as they start appearing in late spring because none of the plant material can be seen above ground.

In tightly spiraled leaves, hostas start to poke out of the soil in tiny bumps. A completely new plant arises from underground. If people or pets trample on these hard little leaf bumps they easily break off and the hosta will either be late in getting out of the ground or won’t be as healthy and full. Labels for hostas can help you remember just where all those hostas will appear in the spring and will help family and friends step around them rather than step on them unknowingly.   The labels for hostas will also help you know which species is an earlier bloomer than the rest and will allow you to know where to watch for the first hostas of spring.

Winter is a time for planning and re-thinking your garden, but with no markers of what species of hosta is where, it might be difficult to remember which was which. On warm winter days you can head out to the garden, note where certain hostas are currently sleeping by their plant markers and plan where you might want to divide or move some in the coming spring.

At Kincaid Plant Markers, we can create resilient long-lasting labels for your hostas so that all year round you can plan on new garden designs and in the spring you can keep your tender hostas leaves safe from harm.

Helping Your Varieties Stand Out With Rose Labels

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Roses 1Like being unaware of the great diversity of leaves of different trees, some people may not recognize the uniqueness of different rose bushes until they truly get up close and study them. They may say that all roses look the same and some come in yellow, red or pink. But the careful eye can start to see the many different variety of heirloom, hybrid tea, miniature, climbing, grandiflora, shrub, groundcover roses and more. Blooms can be single, double, flat, quartered, cupped or clustered. Colors include creamy apricots and purples.

Roses come in a variety of sizes, colors, shapes and fragrances. Plant markers with rose labels can help you keep your beautiful varieties straight and invite your visitors to experience the wide world of roses in your garden. With rose names like Joan Fontaine, Golden Globe, Star of the Nile, Bedazzler and The Poet you can expect quite a garden party!

What do you need to know to give your roses a great start? Here are a few tips:

  • Planting

It is recommended that you patiently wait to plant your roses after all danger of frost has passed in the spring or at least 10 weeks before fall’s first frost. Depending on the area where you live, it’s fine to plant your roses any time throughout the growing season.

Once you’ve found the right time to plant your roses, dig a large enough hole so that their roots are not too tight and they will have a little room to grow. Some rose specialists suggest a hole around 2’ x 2’.

  • Nutrients

The right soil will provide quality nutrients to your roses and allow them to blush their perfect colors and exude their heavenly fragrances for you. A pH level of 6.5 provides the right balance of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous for your plants. Your residence may be blessed with its original healthy soil, not changed by construction, but some people may want to add some nutrients to their soil for a good start. Some cow or horse manure placed in the bottom of the hold you dug will be there to help those roots grow. On the top of the roots you can place a mixture of peat moss, bone meal and the original soil. Do some research on your soil and the fertilizer requirements for your roses.

  • Water

Be sure to water your roses at least once or twice a week. While you don’t want the soil soggy, letting the soil dry out too much between watering will stress your roses and they won’t produce as well. Also, watering at the base of the plant will help prevent diseases on wet leaves.

Kincaid Plant Markers can help you differentiate between your beautiful blooms with rose labels. Our classic 100 percent stainless steel silver markers will pair with a classy look next to your classic roses. Let your rose labels announce the stars of your garden party and help others see that each rose has its own beauty and personality.

Metal Garden Labels Tie Your Garden’s Story Together

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Garden 2The air is warm again. The late spring rains are softening up the ground before the summer sun starts to bake the earth. As your spring blossoms fade, you might have some summer vacation time to reconsider your garden or to start planning what to do with that one section of the yard that has sat desolate for years.

When creating or restructuring a garden, it is fun to get so engrossed in researching new foliage and blossoms that you may forget about the big picture of your landscape. But that big picture is what gives it character and ties it all together. Even with a diversity of plants you can assemble them to have the feeling of a lush jungle, a sunny meadow or a structured herb garden. Whether for a very structured garden or a lush flowing landscape, metal garden labels can enhance your garden atmosphere and tie your plants together into the big picture that you envision.

How do you plan for that big picture? Garden experts suggest some techniques to tell a story with your garden. Here are a few to get you started:

  • Theme – Think of your overall garden. Will it be lush and full of green foliage or have spaces between plants like a flowering desert? Will it resemble a streamside woodland or a dry prairie? Will it be a garden of fragrances or one of non-stop color? While metal garden labels can label your individual plants, they can also be used for short quotes or words that reflect your garden’s theme.
  • Scale – As you scan your space, imagine how much of your yard you want to turn into a garden. Some gardeners create “rooms” in their yard, divided by arbors, hedges, or other natural materials and each room has its own feel to it. Metal garden labels can welcome you into each of these rooms representing a “children’s garden,” “rose room,” “aromatic arena” and more.
  • Flow – There’s no need to have every plant in your growing region in your garden. Repetition of plants actually helps create a lovely flow throughout your garden. Identical metal garden labels will flow like shiny pebbles among the plants. Peaceful gardens flow with beds of the same plants winding, breaking and meeting up with you again in another part of the garden. Think of how a stream meanders, interlaced with sandbars and rocks, but always flowing.
  • Special Features – It is fun to include sculpture, water features, bird baths and other structures among the plants in your garden. While these features can create a whimsical feel to your landscape, take care to not cause too much of a jumbled distraction with them. Simplicity can be exciting or calming without a feeling of confusion.

You can bring the character of your garden alive with metal garden labels that flow right along with your garden’s color and foliage. Our simple stainless steel garden labels at Kincaid Plant Markers will not distract from your plants, but will serve as a thread to tie your story together.

Transform Your Backyard into a Botanic Garden With Classical Garden Marker Beauty

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DSC04692[1]Strolling through a large or small botanic garden is comforting. Lush layers of light and dark greens softly embrace you like a down comforter. Your eyes and head relax and your heart rate slows and steadies in the quiet retreat. Songbirds are drawn in to the peaceful diverse habitat and add music among the garden’s bluebells and trumpet vine. While many cities across the country offer the public beautiful botanic gardens, you can create one in your own backyard.

What is the lure of botanic gardens? The peacefulness and beauty are attractive, of course, but also a longing to learn more about plants– new varieties and ideas that you can use in your own garden. The lure is also knowledge– knowledge to identify multiple varieties, to see relationships among different plants and to pass that knowledge onto others who love plants. Without a classical garden marker a plant is beautiful for the moment, but then forgotten. A classical garden marker can give it a name—something that admirers can record for later use.

Plant markers educate, inform and help interpret the plants that we love to our friends and visitors. To some, their plants are like children. Each plant receives its proper nutrients, hydration and type of sun exposure. Names also give singular recognition for those things we love, so it’s no wonder that plant name labels are important parts of some well-loved gardens.

While it’s nice to stroll through your garden telling your guests the names of all of your flowers, it’s nice to have a classical garden marker there for them to read as you say it, for them to re-read after you move along to talk to other guests, for those guests who look but don’t ask questions aloud and to help those visual learners and photographic memory people remember the plant name better as they see the letters before them.

We love to hear stories like the one from Linda Walsh Lapinski who found our markers dependable and essential after other company’s markers had failed in their garden. After she and her husband had carefully labeled all of their varieties of day lilies, one winter season obliterated the print on the markers and even destroyed some.

She loves botanical gardens and home gardens that have their plants identified. She must know the names of the plants that she passes. Plants without identification markers leave an emptiness in such lush green worlds. A classical garden marker gives her the opportunity to learn about yet one more flower, shrub or ornamental tree she could add to her own backyard botanical world.

We at Kincaid Plant Markers would love to help you create a botanical landscape in your backyard with a classical garden marker that is dependable, weather-resistant, and showcases all your hard work and joy in gardening.

Not Sure on Shrubs? Give Them a Second Chance with Plant Markers for Shrubs

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Do you have a spot in your yard that needs softened with some foliage? Perhaps it’s a spot that needs more than some tall perennials and the woody trunk of a tree. Enter shrubs.

They’re the quiet, often uncelebrated workhorse of many gardens, both professional and commercial. They are a nice balance between short and tall plants. They balance out your yard’s green beauty by meeting in the middle and connecting the eye between beautiful flowers and the bushy tops of trees.

Besides balancing the beauty in your yard, did you know shrubs provide some of the same services as trees? They can help keep homes cool by providing shade, and warmer as they slow autumn and winter winds. They can also provide natural fences, borders and boundaries. (And, if you have small kids or grandkids, they make a great ball-catcher).

Shopping For Shrubs

Color, anyone? When choosing the perfect shrubs for your yard, there a lot of factors to consider that are both above and below the ground. You might want one for a certain color of bloom, like the deep blue of hydrangea or you might want some color, any color, at certain times of the year when there is a lull in the blooms of your perennial bed. Forsythia can brighten your spring, butterfly bushes can attract butterfly beauties in the summer, the fiery leaves of aromatic sumac can liven up your garden in fall and holly and other evergreens can keep part of your yard green throughout winter.

Short or Tall, Shrubs Get it Done. You’ll also want to consider the height and width of your shrubs. Do want them to fit nicely underneath a window or do you want them to become a privacy fence from your neighbors? Some will start off like twigs, but fatten up within a few years, others will keep their shape and won’t spread. Know what you want for your site before you put your shrub in the ground.

Haven’t I Seen Those Roots Before? Lastly, get to know the root systems of your shrubs so that you don’t have any damage to nearby structures or foundations. Some shrub roots can become large and start to spread into house foundation cracks or underground pipes.

Whichever shrubs you choose, get to know whether they like sun or partial shade, dry or damp soil, what extra nutrients they may need and how much pruning work you’ll have to invest in keeping you (as well as them) happy over the years.

Labeling For the Green Shrubby Guy in the Middle. Sturdy plant markers that sit among the delicate stems of perennials help protect plants from being forgotten in the non-growing season and help proudly label plants through all their stages of growth. Trees are usually labeled with plates that are fastened to their trunks at eye-level. Plant markers for shrubs can be shorter or taller depending on your preference. Look for markers that won’t corrode and can resist trampling or shifting, be it from pets, weather or even children at play.

Kincaid Plant Markers creates plant markers for shrubs as well as your other garden plants. We offer different plant marker plate angles and marker styles so you can choose the perfect markers for the shrubs in your backyard. And may those trusty, reliable shrubs be nameless no more.

 

Quality Plant Labels Rival Professionally Engraved Plant Markers For Versatility and Durability

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You want your plant markers to not only look good, but to last for years. Durable stakes and sun and weather-resistant plates are what you are looking for to mark and label your plants. While some people prefer professionally engraved plant markers to forever mark plants, others like the durability and versatility of using quality labels on their name plates.

Markers That Last

icon-img-rev_plantmarker-label_400px[1]The most durable plant markers are made of 100 percent stainless steel that won’t ever rust or wear away. Professionally engraved plant markers are not often stainless steel and are more likely to succumb to temperature and weather wear over the years.

While the grooves of the engraving are forever, the actual plates they are engraved upon may not be able to weather through the years. The readability of those engraved letters may also become difficult. The white paint in the letters of professionally engraved plant markers may fade and make it difficult to read the letters which return to the same color (usually black) as the name plate.

Time For a Little Change?

Using a labeler allows you to change the names on your markers and be creative. Professionally engraved plant markers are permanent, unlike our ever-changing dynamic gardens. In your vegetable gardens you may have a few favorite varieties that you grow year after year. Yet, for other vegetables your tastes may change. After years of green peppers, you may decide you’re more of a banana pepper type of person. When a perennial perishes from weather, insects or disease you might replace its spot with something new. What do you do with those old engraved plant markers? Using a plant marker with a professional labeling system allows you to be versatile and allows you to adapt to the changes in your garden.

With a plant labeler, seasons of creativity can be unleashed. Scientific names can change to common names can change to personal names, like “Mom’s Prized Irises.” Whatever your mood of the season, you can change your plant markers as often or as seldom as you like by creating new labels.

Kincaid Plant Markers offers you durable stainless steel stakes and plates that you won’t have to replace because of wear and tear. We use the Brother P-touch label maker and Brother Laminated Tape on our plant markers. With the label maker you can choose between different font styles and sizes. The 1 1/8″ x 3.5″ plate size allows you to make fonts large, small or a combination. It also has signs and symbols to add a bit of art to your plates, if you wish. With Kincaid plant markers, you can change your marker labels to fit your ever-changing garden—a versatility for creativity and for the delightful surprises that gardens offer us each year.

Dependable Plant Labels Announce Your Year ‘Round Blooms

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Every great celebrity deserves a great introduction. Think of your plant labels as the emcee to your beautiful garden. They are there to introduce plants to visitors, to set them each apart and recognize them. They’re not there to steal the show, but they won’t let you down in introducing your plant with professionalism and class.

Peonies are popping in the spring, Wild Bergamot bursts with firework-type blooms in July and Asters explode in the fall. Plant labels can announce the blossoming of your blooms.

While plant labels should look attractive, they shouldn’t be flashier than the plants they are introducing. You want your plant labels small enough to not overwhelm the plant, with labels large enough to be read easily. You also want plant markers that last a lifetime for you. Stainless steel won’t rust over the years and will retain its shine so that it won’t take away any of the beauty of your plant as it stands alongside it.

For plant markers that add beauty to your garden you want markers that are slender, yetBrother P-Touch Label Printers and Accessories sturdy. They don’t overwhelm your garden plants, yet their plates are easy to see among soft petals and broad leaves. Look for plant markers with stability and durability so that you can tuck them in among your plants and not have to worry that they will tarnish or rust away. Kincaid Plant Markers offers simple silver-toned stainless steel plates come in four styles and add a little sparkle to your garden, without the clutter of company logos or unnecessary designs on each plate.

The most noticeable part of the plant marker should be the plant label. Visitors aren’t there to see your markers. They are there to see your plants. After their eye catches an attractive plant, then they search for its name. If your labels smear or fade or wash away, then you have missed an opportunity to share that plant fully with your visitor. There are lots of ways to attach a label to a plant label plate, but many serious gardeners have found that the Brother P-Touch Label Printer can create plant labels that will last through the years but are easy to change up if needed. The plant label material itself is laminated and can withstand the rays of the sun, winter’s cold and pelting rains. They are printed with a tough adhesive backing so that you can just print them and stick them on the plant markers.

When you look out into the garden, your eye should first catch the beautiful foliage and blooms that you have so carefully planted together. Upon closer inspection, you can see that each has its own identity. Let Kincaid Plant Markers help you introduce your plant personalities to others. We’ll announce your plants and let your plants take center stage. They are, after all, the focal point.

With sturdy, dependable plant markers and easy-to-read labels, we can help you herald the arrival of a new bloom or set the stage as you wait for their season of glory.

Telling Your Story with the Right Plant Marker

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Garden 1Every garden tells a story. They retain a history; rose bushes or irises planted by a family member long ago, species of plants that thrived here when the Native Americans dominated this region and varieties of vegetables that combine to make famous family recipes. Plant markers can be the chapter headings of those stories, helping families remember or museum visitors to never forget our country’s past.

Telling Family Stories is Easier with the Right Plant Label System

“Grandma’s columbine” or “Dad’s apple tree” have a special place on a family’s farm or backyard. Pie or preservative recipes from the fruits harvested from a family’s property get passed on. The plants that first delivered those fruits can be passed on, too, when they are kept in memory with a plant marker. Without labeling Grandma’s gooseberry bush, some other plants may invade and the old bush may become forgotten.

A plant marker can pay tribute to those special plantings and label them so that they’re not lost among the plants tucked in by younger generations. A walk through the garden can become a mix of stories about generations of family cultivators, recalling memories and making memories.

Are You Telling Regional and National Stories with Your Community’s Garden?

National historic sites like Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and regional sites like Powell Gardens in Kansas City have acres of plants – so choosing the right plant markers is no small detail. Millions of visitors will read these each year, and they must be sturdy, easy to use and not distract from the plants themselves. Powell Gardens (a.k.a. Kansas City’s botanical garden) helps share the botanical stories of our region of Missouri with Kincaid Plant Markers stainless steel plant markers. Everything from edible garden varieties to showy perennials and grasses have to be labeled for visitors to share in the cultural enjoyment of the region’s variety of plants, and this label and plate stands the test of time.

For children who grow up thinking that lettuce and tomatoes just come from the grocery store, living history farms share the process of cultivation. When live interpreters can’t always be there to explain or identify plants to visitors, durable plant markers take over and point out the first feathery leaves of a carrot top.

Great Plant Markers Can Create Their Own Stories

Jan Riggenbach, from the Globe Gazette, declared Kincaid’s stainless steel plant marker with the Brother Garden Labeler as the #1 most durable and reliable way to label your plants whether they are at home or at a nature center or historic site. In an experimental trial, she tested the performance of a variety of markers and labels. The Kincaid markers took a beating from the sun and other elements, were rated as the best against other competitors and, most importantly, were highly satisfactory for the customer. (Now that’s a plant marker worth telling stories about).

At Kincaid Plant Markers, our sturdy plant markers age well and are made to last a lifetime. Our stainless steel markers won’t corrode or rust and will weather through the seasons of each year. We hope we can help your share the stories of your family, our American heritage or our proud agricultural traditions that bring the food from our gardens to our kitchens.

Every garden tells a story – you can share yours year after year with Kincaid Plant Markers.

Perennial Plant Stakes—They’ll Be There Year After Year

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IMG_3597H.E. Bates says that “A garden should be in a constant state of fluid change, expansion, experiment, adventure; above all it should be an inquisitive, loving, but self-critical journey on the part of its owner.” A fluid garden offers some uniformity as well as some surprises over the years. It remains a bit tame with some perennial favorites placed perfectly and a bit wild with some natural spreading, a few transplants or some annuals tucked in for seasonal color.

For those tame perennials that will reliably return each spring, summer or fall, durable plant markers help us anticipate their arrival. But the plant stakes themselves have to be reliable to herald the coming of the perennial year after year. Kincaid’s 100 percent stainless steel plant stakes are made to be there to help you mark your plants season after season. Kincaid’s rust-free plant stakes are made to last forever.

Gary and Jeff put great care in crafting quality plant stakes so that your investment in those stakes also lasts forever. Businesses like Kansas City’s Powell Gardens trust the superior quality of Kincaid garden stakes. These resilient stakes dot the lush 970-acre landscape, identifying all varieties of plants for their many visitors. If you travel to Des Moines, IA, you’ll also see Kincaid’s plant stakes identifying plants or awaiting their seasonal arrival at the official Better Homes and Gardens Test Garden. The quality of Kincaid plant markers are superior to those made by other companies.

Other crafters often use carbon steel, galvanized “zinc” steel or other materials that are coated over a plant stake. Those stakes often rust, corrode, break, and lose their luster. Moisture, acidic soil, fertilizers or other abrasive materials could damage plant stakes that are not 100 percent stainless steel. Chemicals and organic materials in the soil can wear away the coating that is on plant stakes. Kincaid plant markers are stainless and strong. These highly-praised plant markers come in different sizes and plate angles, so you can find just the right fit. With our Brother P-Touch printers, Brother TZ Style label materials and printed labels you can design your labels so they are perfect for your plant stakes.

Tending to plants, dividing and transplanting, digging new gardens and pulling weeds takes plenty of time and effort. Part of that effort and expense shouldn’t be having to repeatedly repurchase and relabel new plant markers. As your garden grows, Kincaid plant stakes can help you remember where your plants are, identify your new arrivals, and mark your steadfast favorites for years to come, because Kincaid plant markers were made for a lifetime of gardening. (And this allows you to have some fun with the other levels of constant garden change!)
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Got questions about labeling or organizing your plants? We’re here to help. Enjoy our blog “Metal to the Petal” to find ideas, images and answers as you keep your garden organized. We invite you to comment and share!