tree labeling

[Future]

After years of trying several materials and system, I use now only stainless steel labels. Size 75 x 35 mm. Ordered some 500 to a metalworkshop with a laser cutting machine. Welding wire of diameter 1mm or 0.6mm to fix. Also some left overs from stainless cables can do the job, when split into reasonable thickness.
The text is stamped with a set of ABC letters from 3 mm height and nowadays also sometimes 4mm to highlight capitals. I have also 3 and 4 mm numbers.

With small trees I hang simple with a loop the label on a branch or stake (also for bushes) That the wood grows over the wire is no problem as long as it is stainless.
When trees are older I drive the u hook into the bark with an old screwdriver. Later on it overgrows nicely and the wire sticks beautifully out, with the hanging label.
Hereby some just made new ones:

Leo

This looks great.  How much did you pay per label?

[mangaba]

This Dymo labelwriter can do metal labels.
    I have a Dymo labelwriter quite similar to the one pictured. It does not do a good job on strips of aluminium cans. The plastic embossing wheel does not emboss well on aluminium.
    I am looking for a metal embossing system or metal letter punch. Any suggestions on models and aprox price ?
                                                       
                                                          mangaba   

[Oceanus]

No association, just thought these looked good and thought may would like to know of this new option.

https://signsfortropicals.com/

[Daintree]

I just use white plastic "T stake" plant markers and write on them with a paint pen. On one side I print the common name, on the other I put the botanical name. 

Each plant also has an aluminum tag with a code that includes year, plant #, material type (seed, plant, cutting etc), source (collected in the wild, fruit stand, nursery etc), and its assigned acession number. Abbreviations, of course, and those soft tags you engrave with a ballpoint pen.

I have about 150 trees.

Carolyn

[W.]

My caveat to this thread is that all my plants are container plants, though the majority of the year, those plants (and their associated plant labels) are outside in the weather.

I use aluminum from drink cans for my plant labels. It is not so thick that it cannot be embossed into but is thick enough that it will withstand wear. I cut the top and bottom off the can, then unroll and flatten the side. I use an empty ballpoint pen (empty because I do not want ink getting all over the place) and place the aluminum on a surface with some give, not a hard surface. On my labels, I write the scientific name, common name or names, date I acquired the plant or seed, and who I acquired it from. I engrave this information lightly with my first pass, then do a second pass to engrave everything more forcefully. It takes a little bit of time and hand strength to do this, but not as much of either as you might think.

Here is what one of those labels looks like. Note that I cut off the corners to make them safer to handle.


I place them in my plants in a variety of ways. The most common and easiest is to use a thick piece of aluminum wire. I make a loop at the top for the label to go on and then stick it down into the pot. The wire needs to be long enough to anchor itself down in the pot and of a thick enough gauge not to bend too easily. I always use aluminum wire for my aluminum tags to prevent any galvanic corrosion, which would reduce the lifespan of the tags.


Sometimes, I make small cedar posts for the tags to go on. Cedar is very rot resistant, but it will rot eventually, so this is not the most permanent post material.


Other times, I use other forms of aluminum. This post was made out of an aluminum storm window.


This shows what my plant labels and posts look like after several years of use. This is one of the first of these I made, back in 2020. I was still figuring things out, so it is not the best label. Although I did not photograph the back of the label, after a couple of years, whatever drink advertising that is on the reverse will fade away in the sun and become pretty much unnoticeable.

[Jagmanjoe]

No association, just thought these looked good and thought may would like to know of this new option.

https://signsfortropicals.com/

Thanks for posting the link, Oceanus.  I am the one doing these engraved signs and they are engraved on a marine grade material that has been used in the marine and other industries for over 20 years.  It is also thicker than many, being 1/4" thick material.  While I had been concentrating on the larger staked signs, I have also started engraving smaller oval hanging identification signs that can have one or two holes for attachment purposes.

If anyone from Tropical Fruit Forum is interested in any of my signs, just contact me for special pricing letting me know you are a member of the forum. 

Here are a few pics of the oval signs.

[Guanabanus]

Nice!

[a3pulley]

So... I made some garden signs.



Was this the best use of my time? Did my wife approve of the many "pre" Christmas gifts this project entailed? Should I have just ordered them from one of the many fine botanical sign purveyors on the Internet? I will let you ponder the answers to these deep questions. In the meantime, here's what they look like in the garden







Since I suspect some of you are similarly hopeless nerds, here is how I made them. I used a cheap 10w diode laser etcher to vaporize the anodization on 2x4", 1mm thick aluminum blanks (both from Amazon). I attached them with 3M VHB tape to anodized aluminum bar stock (1/8" thick, 3/4" wide) from an extruded aluminum supplier in Whittier, CA. The laser etcher was decent bang for buck, but it took a bit of experimentation until I arrived at a power supply that wouldn't crap out 10 minutes into an etching job. Not sure why it ships with a wimpy 3A one. I replaced it with a 5A PS and used a coaxial to 4 pin adapter to connect it.

My next challenge was figuring out how align the etcher and my cards. There is probably a smarter way (not to mention more expensive etchers that have built in cameras for just this purpose), but I cut 2x4" holes in a 3mm thick basswood sheet with the etcher and left it in exactly the same spot for all my batches. The preview mode on the software I used (Lightburn—free trial!) showed me that etching 15 at a time would be much slower than 3 times five at a time (due to slow laser travel between cards in the template I guess?) so I did 12 batches. Each one took ~9 hours, so I started one before bed and another after school drop off.

My test batches didn't look great—the letters looked aliased/blocky—so I fiddled with line count and tracing settings until I found something that wouldn't take 20 hrs per batch but would look acceptable. At some point I panicked because I was almost out of free trial days in Lightburn, but you can click "Extend Free Trial" up to three times, which is great because I wasn't looking forward to telling my wife that I was giving myself an n-th preChristmas present.

Assembly look a little trial and error. I made a little jig so the cards would go nearly halfway in, after which I would lay the stakes down on the jig and press them exactly into the center of the cards. I also got a cheap vice-mounted rebar bender to bend the top 1.5" of the stakes 30 degrees (I clamped some scrap wood to my work table as a limiter). The only part of this project I wasn't really proud of was the tight radius of curvature on my stake bends; the anodization cracked and I'm sure it will fall off eventually at the bends. Applying the VHB tape was super easy. I've read I can expect over a decade of life out of this adhesive.

Finally, the QR codes point to a *very* bare-bones personal website where I write what I know about each plant. I can log in to upload pictures of my plants, add journal entries about plant progress, and record heights on a little graph. (I was a software engineer, so this was the fun/easy part of the project for me.) The plant entries were a nice forcing function for me to learn about my trees: you can't write about something if you don't understand it! The plant inventory is a work in progress. I deliberately designed it to be as barebones and low-maintenance as possible, since I want the QR codes to work long after I've lost interest in maintaining the website. It is written in straight HTML/CSS and Vanilla Javascript with no modern frameworks. I even downloaded the couple libraries I used and serve them myself in case they disappear from the Internet in the future. The domain is $12/yr and hosting on AWS S3 costs pennies per month (I'm in the free tier for everything else).

[70Malibu]

Very nice, your garden will now look like a botanical garden (The Huntington Gardens).

[SHV]

Damn, those are beautiful a3pulley.  I would love to give all my plants the arboretum treatment, but the time…
I did get a little chuckle from the pepper tree getting its own tag.  I have an all hate relationship with those and eucalyptus trees. 

[a3pulley]

@SHV not to be annoyingly upbeat, but they are good for some things! https://youtu.be/jQ5QmItwKvI.

OK fine, I guess I'll be annoyingly upbeat. My euc fell over in a windstorm a few years ago and I couldn't get a grinder down there, so I left the stump. I was annoyed that its shoots grew to nearly 30 ft in a few years until I realized I had free firewood (and workout?). It's mixed in here with some Acacia longifolia but here was harvest #1 from the unintentional coppice.

[xesoteryc]

@SHV not to be annoyingly upbeat, but they are good for some things! https://youtu.be/jQ5QmItwKvI.

OK fine, I guess I'll be annoyingly upbeat. My euc fell over in a windstorm a few years ago and I couldn't get a grinder down there, so I left the stump. I was annoyed that its shoots grew to nearly 30 ft in a few years until I realized I had free firewood (and workout?). It's mixed in here with some Acacia longifolia but here was harvest #1 from the unintentional coppice.

If you havent already, check out edible mushrooms. Those logs would be great for inoculating. Just drill, plug and seal. I’m still learning but some are super tasty

[Steph]

I’m using stainless steel with the Dymo tape writer (not cheap) Tied on to the main trunk with 6+ feet of coiled stainless safety wire (cheap).

To prepare the coiled wire I wrap it around a round Phillips screwdriver shank that I mount in an electric drill and let the power tool do the spinning.

[a3pulley]

I’m using stainless steel with the Dymo tape writer (not cheap) Tied on to the main trunk with 6+ feet of coiled stainless safety wire (cheap).

To prepare the coiled wire I wrap it around a round Phillips screwdriver shank that I mount in an electric drill and let the power tool do the spinning.

I love this. I haven’t ventured into grafting fun cultivars on my fruit trees yet, but I’ve been wondering how to label branches of future cocktail trees. This looks like a great permanent solution for after grafts take.

[70Malibu]

Steph, very clever and should last a long time. I need to replace my cheap AL tags every 3-5yrs after the birds and rats chew on it.

[johnvpr]

I have been printing 3d printed labels and they work fine so far:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3199259

[Kankan]

I use aluminum tags like these.  http://www.amekron.com/

I used tags like that when i first started out. Was a big mistake! Don't know if it was the same brand or not, but the wires that came with the tags rusted out and the tags fell off. So i had to go back through and retie all the tags with stainless steel wire. Then the tags being too thin over time get crumpled and wrinkled and pretty much become ilegible. I think they are ok for about 5 years and then rapidly degrade after that. It's better in my opinion to use a thicker metal and an embossing tool. For trees you need to think of something that will last at least 25 years or more.

Totally agree!

[BP]

How about aluminum flashing cut up and a letter punch? What kind of wire to tie it with?

[Fruit Jungle]

I use these, but the wire is too thin, so purchase thicker stainless steel wire

https://www.amazon.com/Emboss-Tag-Gardening-Durability-Applications/dp/B01LP3KFWS/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=VLAH6HEEPDEX&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.AE1C3QcOltA469olXGwR2p7EcMlYJJedjDqet8ygM9oqdG-_BPeEYGaiTvqCjVM4UuPxAZvrO8uTgjvZXI0i85l3IgTo6UynReQYJTjg2cLz10c29Hl9C1GRJVkRktp2EZe-vsxo_vKSKN9H0eEIWCGjVVI03OiMMY-6h97Tm3TENxabFeh9xs_We8lgUUyFHDHrcu_QZ8zwaBLpyjWTRLGZruqQs-2BMm3SZ6JWIDRzeQwaks7ePbsuN6hlR1hFq7IasRpER0uoSQ-d7lOfqEJi-POH7I2DYk_nD10PQmk.KdfTWGv9yA78U17HITywr4KgSO0STBQY78w5x90XhYE&dib_tag=se&keywords=metal+plant+labels&qid=1767482793&sprefix=metal+plant+label%2Caps%2C328&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

[BP]

What about this and an angle grinder to cut, and a solid center punch to make holes. Am I way off trying to do stainless tags this way?
https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Steel-Strapping-Band-Coil/dp/B0BXL6GBZZ/ref=mp_s_a_1_2

[greenerpasteur]

I used this. $300 tool but I bought it used for $50 and each label is $3/16 feet aluminum. It label, cut, and punch hole.

[MasOlas]

Wow, those are impressive but that tool cost is crazy. You scored for $50!

I been using these with hi-visibility zip ties. If they start falling off the green garden tape lasts forever and I’ll be switching to that. I just wish they had a high visibility color because green gardening tape tends to get lost in the canopy. LOL
https://www.amazon.com/Emboss-Tag-Gardening-Durability-Applications/dp/B01LP3KFWS/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=VLAH6HEEPDEX&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.AE1C3QcOltA469olXGwR2p7EcMlYJJedjDqet8ygM9oqdG-_BPeEYGaiTvqCjVM4UuPxAZvrO8uTgjvZXI0i85l3IgTo6UynReQYJTjg2cLz10c29Hl9C1GRJVkRktp2EZe-vsxo_vKSKN9H0eEIWCGjVVI03OiMMY-6h97Tm3TENxabFeh9xs_We8lgUUyFHDHrcu_QZ8zwaBLpyjWTRLGZruqQs-2BMm3SZ6JWIDRzeQwaks7ePbsuN6hlR1hFq7IasRpER0uoSQ-d7lOfqEJi-POH7I2DYk_nD10PQmk.KdfTWGv9yA78U17HITywr4KgSO0STBQY78w5x90XhYE&dib_tag=se&keywords=metal+plant+labels&qid=1767482793&sprefix=metal+plant+label%2Caps%2C328&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

[70Malibu]

I always use those Amazon aluminum tags (cheap enough) and change out cheap aluminum wires with the green garden wire rolls since they last without falling apart after 4yrs. But those aluminum tags are thin, doesn't last more than 5yrs so I'm always replacing them when I have time.

I like both your ideas on the high-quality stainless-steel roll (BP) and special tool which punches hole and label (greenerpasteur).
I will need to search for a used label tool like yours since I'm downsizing my fruit collection so I can take more time to make the ID tags.

[70Malibu]

I just found one of those used metal label printer. Hope it works good.

[seng]

I used this. $300 tool but I bought it used for $50 and each label is $3/16 feet aluminum. It label, cut, and punch hole.

I got a used one similar to this for $56 on ebay.  Mine has metal disc label, not plastic on some models. TBW: the unit is metallic, but the alphabetic disc can be metallic or plastic.  You have to keep an eye on ebay for a while to get this kind of price.  I get the stainless steel wire on temu.