DIY Garden Markers That Last

Spring is here and I’m all wrapped up with giddiness in preparing for gardening season. This year I am sharing seeds with my cousin Diane, who got a greenhouse just like mine last year. We’ve been collaborating on sharing seeds, because let’s face it, sometimes those seed packets have way too many seeds in them for us to plant individually so why not save some money?

Unfortunately, this has led to the fact that we are planting crazy amounts of flowers, especially the zinnias we both love and adore.

Recently in one of the garden rooms I am in on Facebook, I saw a lady post some garden markers that I thought were brilliant. She used a mailing label template, printed them off and laminated them.  Then she fastened them to floral card holders. She said they had lasted for five years so my ears perked up at that info.

I’ve made some other cute ideas for garden markers over the year, but painted wooden spoons rotted, and the words washed and weathered off of wine corks.

So I thought I’d give them a try!

To begin I opened up Microsoft Word – selected Labels and picked Avery Self Adhesive Badge Labels #5395. I wanted visuals of what my plants would be so I picked a font and then searched for clip art -some were available from word and some I searched for on Bing until I found ones that looked similar to what I was planting. This will come in handy with my new dahlias because I will know what they will look like while waiting for them to bloom.

Then I printed them out in color on white card stock.

And I cut them out individually.

My first go – I laminated the entire sheet and cut them out after, but found that that opens up the laminate where you cut and this happened.

You want the laminate to completely seal all four sides -so cut first, then laminate, then cut again leaving a border of laminate around each side. I picked up this cute little laminator at Aldi for $15. It worked great and I’ll use it for other things around the house! You can find similar ones here.

That picture is from when I laminated the whole sheet – DON’T DO THAT!

Then I cut them apart. This is what it should look like!

TADA!!!

I also ordered a large package of floral pick place card holders.

And because I live in super sonic WINDY Oklahoma, I reinforced mine on the back with a large piece of white duct tape.

And that’s it! These have been outside nearly 3 weeks now with no leakage. I did face them in a direction where they will get the least sun possible just in case of fading…

Once I show you these next pictures, you’re going to understand just why I like to use garden markers.

I plant ridiculous amounts of zinnias by seed, and I like to know which are where.

Yes I know I have a sickness…

Also….herbs!

Lots of other flowers.

My new obsession – Dahlias!

Fancy peppers – because we all know, most pepper plants look exactly the same – this takes the guess work out of what you’re going to get on what plant.

As do tomatoes right?

I’ll keep you updated on how these work out, but so far they are doing great!