Tagging Roses

It's a beautiful day in my part of the world. The sun is out, the air is crisp and clean, courtesy of a big rainstorm that passed through a few days ago. More rain promises to blow in tonight and tomorrow.

But today, everybody is out enjoying the sunshine in the front yard:

Sun-drunk pug:

The roses, liriope, and Russian sage are all tucked into their new beds, and everything looks great:

The plants will spend most of our mild winter working on growing their root systems bigger and stronger. Come April, they should put on quite a show. For now, things are small and quiet:

Props to my fence guys! They were professional, on time, on budget, and friendly. I like them so much, I promised to leave their sign up for a few weeks longer:

Today is a perfect day to put markers on all the rose bushes so I don't forget their names. I found these tags at my local garden shop. A pack of 50 markers is only $6.99 plus tax, and the flexible wires are long enough to tie around a rose branch with plenty of room left to grow:

I usually wear gloves when working in the garden. These are by Foxgloves. I love them because they fit very snugly, are quite flexible, and are totally washable:

The tag makes me smile. "One size fits most": Well, that's being honest! I suppose there are a few pro ball players out there who wouldn't be able to jam their paws into these things:

I'm taking off the large, illustrated tags that came with the rose bushes. After a quick cleanup of their plasticized surfaces, I'll pop them in an envelope and keep them just for the record. Or until I lose where I put the envelope, in which case I'll keep them for decades:

The garden shop where I bought these tags said a ball-point pen works well to emboss the name into the flexible metal. They were right! They also suggested I make a paper map of which roses are planted where, just in case a tag gets lost, or accidentally lopped off by the gardeners, or otherwise goes m.i.a.:

Well, it's pretty messy. I think I'll rewrite this, or maybe make it a Word document:

I like that the metal tags are small yet visible:

They don't distract from the beauty of the bushes:

They're just sorta there, waiting to be asked, "What was this one called, again?":

About a third of the plants came with a metal tag from the grower. They're small and unobtrusive, plus they're embossed metal, too, so they will last a long while:

The job's done, and I still have tags left over, since the grower's tags were so good. I'll save these for the future.

Obligatory glamour shot of pug lying amongst the rose petals:

Potted cat. I forgot to mention, I'm very good at growing Potted Cat:

But do NOT try to tie a tag on this plant. It can get quite irritable.