Page Title

AECPhotos

PERSONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY REPRODUCTIONS--SIXTYFIVE

        CLICK TO RETURN TO PAGE 2 OF LIST OF PAPERS

        CLICK TO RETURN TO PAGE 1 OF LIST OF PAPERS

    CLICK TO RETURN TO PAGE 3 OF LIST OF PAPERS

69. Krulik, Gerald, Making REALLY Permanent Plant Labels, PUP TALK (Saddleback Valley Bromeliad
Society), 17(4), p. 5-7, April, 2010.

By Jerry Krulik

I find that labels are a problem in almost every plant collection. A few brave people dispense with
labels altogether. These are either prodigies gifted with unshakable memories, or people who
grow plants just for their beauty, regardless of names. Most of us must deal with the
disadvantages of labels.

Plastic labels are the most common, but to me, the drawbacks outweigh the advantages. Yes, you
can write on them with pencil or ‘permanent’ marker. And they are cheap. But they rapidly break
down by weathering, becoming brittle and breaking into fragments. The writing on an old label is
often undecipherable. Some people resort to making 2 labels, and burying one in the ground to
prolong its life. Plastic labels cannot be easily attached to plants in any permanent way, even
though they are often stuck between leaves. It is hard to make a hole in the label, to attach it by
wire to a plant, without making it even more brittle.

Aluminum labels are an alternative. These can be written on, are long lived, and can have a hole
punched in them so they can be wired to plants. I find them unattractive, often hard to read, and
subject to weathering though at a much slower rate than plastic. Both plastic and aluminum labels
can be blown around by the wind. I have tried copper foil and copper laminate labels too, but
these are not very good. It is very hard to write names on the copper, and they corrode quickly.

There is another, greener, alternative that dispenses with plastics and resource-intensive metals.
Archaeologists know that the most durable and long-lived artifacts are those based on stone.
Baked clay—that is, pottery—is stone. The Near East is littered with hundreds of thousands of
baked clay writing tablets dating back 5000 years or more. They can still be deciphered with ease
(if you know ancient Babylonian, Sumerian, etc). However, real pottery-type baked clay is beyond
the reach of most hobbyists, since it requires a high temperature kiln and considerable practice.

I use an easier method for labeling. Hobby and craft stores carry supplies of bakeable clay. This
material is soft and malleable, but becomes permanently hard on heating in a regular oven. Once
baked, the labels are essentially unchanging. They do not weather, fade, or get brittle. They can be
permanently immersed in water without softening. They can be broken if dropped sufficiently
vigorously on a hard surface, but this is not common. Rarely do you get more than 2 pieces if
broken, so there is little loss of information, and you can epoxy them back together if you are too
rushed to make a new one.

The process does take some time, but I can make a label in less than a minute, when averaged
over a dozen or so made at a time. I try to make labels for all new plants joining my collection, so
the task is not overwhelming. Of course, it may seem that way to start, but if you make a few dozen
a week, it will, eventually, be done. And you only have to do this once.

The single colored clay on the left is cheaper than colored clays, so I use it for the bulk of the
labels. I usually bake at about 325F for 30 minutes. You can change the color by baking longer and
at a higher temperature. The color will change from grey, to light brown, dark brown, and
eventually blackish. This does not affect the properties of the label, though lower temperatures
give labels that are slightly flexible and less brittle.

Here is the process:
1.        Break off a piece of clay (A) and roll it around until it becomes soft. I first make a ball (B),
then an elongated cylinder (C). The clay is pretty stiff at first, but soon warms up and softens,
staying that way for hours.
2.        Cut off a section of the cylinder and mold it by hand on a flat surface, such as a piece of wax
coated cardboard. Make whatever size and shape of piece that you need, to hold as much
permanent information as you want. I use the flattened box that the clay is sold in.
3.        Using a pointed instrument, such a small engraving or woodworking tool, write the name,
date, accession number, or other data, onto the tag. The photo shows the small pointed wood
carving tools that I use, but even an unfolded paper clip will work. An old pie pan is used to hold
the tags during baking, so spouses should not complain that their good cookware has been ruined.

     Steps A, B, and C soften the clay and prepare the sizes needed. Step D uses fingers to mash
the section of cylinder into the required shape. For mass production, you could use a rolling pin
and a small cookie cutter. The tool at left (under A) is used for poking holes in the tag. The tool at
right is used for cutting and trimming as needed, and for scribing the soft clay. The baking pan
holds about a dozen standard labels at a time.

4.        Now peel off the tag from the flat surface, and poke a hole in one end of the tag. I do this
automatically now for all tags, because once the clay is fired, you would need to drill the hole. This
allows the tag to be permanently wired to the plant at any time in the future. I usually pinch up a
ridge along the center of the longest bottom side, to stiffen the tag and make it less breakable.
The inscribed label, ready for baking, is shown as (D).
5.        Bake the tags until hard. I use 325 F for 30-60 minutes.
6.        DONE. Wire the tags to the plants, or lay the tags on the soil, or stick them deep in the
ground. I use this last method for large tags used with landscape plants, as I have had small
children make piles of visible labels for playthings.

7.        Options. Instead of flat tags, you can make mushrooms with a thick stem, to more securely
stick them in position in the soil. The last photo, bottom row center, shows an upside down label of
this type.
I use very small slivers of tags for tiny plants like Conophytums and Lithops, or for seedlings of all
sorts. Large tags can be used to provide collection data or purchase data, without recourse to
clumsy notebooks.
I also color code some tags. You can buy this clay in colors, which allows numerous options. For
example, when a plant needs to be dry in the winter, I will make a tag with a red clay ring, so I can
tell the cultivation method at a glance. Or if a plant comes with both male and female clones, I can
stick a piece of blue or pink clay in the label to identify them.
You can even use these labels to attach to hybridized seed pods, so you can put them right into
the seed growing medium when the seeds are ripe.

Here are a few of the shapes and sizes I use. Most of the tags shown here have outlasted the
original plants, yet are easily washed and readable. The two tiny tags had no holes, and were used
for similarly tiny succulent plants and seedlings. The center bottom tag is upside down to show the
long mushroom-like stem. The other two upside down tags have 2 types of reinforcing ridges on
their bottom, made by pinching up excess material on the tag bottom. Do not make the tags too
thin. About an eighth to a quarter of an inch is usually sufficient thickness. Thicker tags do not
need reinforcing ridges. The bicolored tag was made by cutting out a hole, placing some softened
red clay in it, and pressing them together prior to baking.

Who knows, some future archaeologist will be able to tell future generations the exact plants that
some ancestor was growing hundreds of years ago. Unfortunately, by that time taxonomists will
have changed every name, but I will be beyond worrying about re-labeling my entire collection!

All previous articles can be seen on my website, www.aecphotos.com.