Make Permanent Plant Tags for Free!
By Canadian Renegade
As some of you might know by reading past posts I have made on plant propagation, I have been gearing up this year to grow a bunch of my own trees for our homestead. Part of this process is going to involve trialing a bunch of different trees and shrubs, especially fruit producing, to see how they do on our property.
During this trialing process, keeping track of the different varieties of apples, cherries, plums and other fruit will be important. The best way to do this is with individual plant tags on every plant. Between some personal experience I have with tags, and some additional research I did, I came to the conclusion that I needed a permanent tag solution.
Just using a piece of plastic or tape with marker on it results in a tag that is bound to fail sooner more likely than later. The wind, sun, and rain quickly degrade both ink and even the plastic itself.
This first led me to copper plant tags which is a really cool idea. The copper is soft enough that you can write on it with a ball point pen and basically engrave the tag. Whatever you write on it will last for years if not decades. The main issue with these tags is that they are expensive! It was going to be roughly $0.50 per tag.
This wasn't acceptable, as the whole reason I am propagating my own trees is to save money. Also, I'm not super keen to buy a product for every problem, especially when there may be a way to reuse or recycle existing materials.
I came across an article where someone had used an aluminum pop can to make plant tags. They claimed that you could also write on them with a pen but pop cans seemed a bit too flimsy to me. While the cans probably weren't ideal, what else could be used?
That's when I realized that I had access to an almost optimal material to make my own plant tags at work: Aluminum fascia. It's usually painted on one side and left bare on the other. Being a roofer, I occasionally replace fascia for someone but more often than not I see left over scraps and pieces of it in job site dumpsters that siders don't bother keeping to recycle. Perfect!
I snagged a few pieces and this is what I came up with.
Materials and Tools:
- Drill with 3/16" drill bit
- Tin Snips
- Scrap Fascia (Old aluminum siding or other aluminum cladding materials would also work. Make sure they are unpainted one side though.)
- Copper Wire (also scrap from house wiring)
- Pen or Large Nail (For writing on the tag. A very large nail worked better than the pen for me but a pen still works.)
The Process:
- Cut the tags. You'll probably want to cut around the folds and ribbing. The good news is whatever you don't use can still go to a scrap yard to be recycled.
- Drill the holes at one side of the tags. You'll notice I also took off the corners of the tags to reduce the chance of cutting or scratching myself later. I think it also looks nicer.
- Cut your desired length of copper wire and the tag is ready to use! This was one strand of the chunk of ground wire I salvaged. I'm sure most any wire would work fine. Cordage, zip ties or something similar will fail eventually.
If you want to mark bedding plants or vegetable plants you could make one of these markers as an alternate but since the plant itself might not be permanent it isn't as critical to have a permanent tag.
That's it! Hope you enjoyed the tutorial. This is a very simple project that would be perfect for a cold winter day. I will probably make up a huge batch this upcoming winter so I don't have to make them on the fly like I did this year.
