A New Year With New Labels
FRCC has installed its first batch of new plant labels. The metal stakes and tags come from Paw-Paw Garden Labels, and the tape comes from Brother’s Inc., but the inspiration and labor come from Dorothy and David Rodal. The Rodals live on Sauvie Island, where they had a clematis nursery for several years. In their personal garden, they’ve been using this style of label and have been pleased with the longevity of the printed tape. They have the computer software and printer for the tape, and offered to do the printing and sticking on of the tape to the labels (as they have an admirable little gadget for doing so).
Curator Linda Beutler met with the Rodals to create a sample for the FRCC Board to approve. They authorized the purchase of supplies for 400 labels. Then she met with them again to create a template she transferred to her computer so that the inventory could be formatted to work with the label-maker printer. While snow fell on Portland over Christmas, Linda was keeping warm over a sizzling computer!
The timing of the arrival of the new labels could not have been better. Especially in the Front Bank garden (where the Viornae Group clematis are), the snow was devastating to the plastic name tag labels we had been using. Now we have legible, professional quality labels, and even including postage for materials, the cost was just $1.75 each.
Labels have been made and installed for all of the clematis in the Historic Garden, and for the clematis and most of their companion plants on the Front Bank. As time allows, the Rodals will complete labels for all of the roses in the Historic Garden, and for the clematis along the terrace walk (the New Zealand Group and the Cirrhosa Group). This will just about use up our first supplies of tags and tape, but we’ll buy more. The Rodals report that these labels have been very durable for them, and the tapes resist fading for 5-6 years—that’s much better than even the best indelible ink pen, and we don’t have to decipher Linda’s writing!
FRCC thanks Dorthy and David for offering to take on this project, and for continuing to make our labels for the near future.
