Metal Plant Markers Closer to Eye Level in a Raised Bed Garden

by | posted in: Uncategorized | 0

Raised Garden 1With gardening comes many emotions from joy to disappointment. In your labor you strive for a bountiful harvest and therefore will sacrifice clean fingernails and endure back pain to dig, weed, plant and harvest those priceless plants. Some gardeners are trying to reduce the back strain by planting raised gardens.

Raised bed gardens allow you to reach out and tend your plants at a greater height. There’s less stooping and crouching and a nice sturdy raised bed border makes for a great spot to sit while you tend the soil right there at your waist level. Individuals who use wheelchairs find that raised beds allow them to garden with greater ease. Older individuals find they don’t have to bend over as much and that the soil is softer and easier to turn. The raised height also makes it easier to place and to read your metal plant markers.

Raised beds offer more than just a back-friendly height. They are attractive in multiple ways:

  • Fewer weeds – In their solitary island, raised beds tend to invite less weeds. The beds may still get some airborne seeds landing in their soil, but their wood or cinder block fortress walls help keep out creeping weedy invaders.
  • Workable soil – Because you and others aren’t walking around the plants, the soil in a raised bed is less compacted and is softer and easier to work. The grains of soil filter through your fingers more like flour rather than like a hard flat pancake of dried packed down soil.
  • Smaller tools – Once the beds are established, there will be less digging with huge spades and more digging with sturdy trowels. Since the soil is less compacted, the tools don’t have to be as large and heavy. Lighter tools also offer less back strain and more ease in planting your flowers and edibles.
  • The crisp outlined raised beds present a neat and tidy garden. Metal plant markers look beautiful in raised beds and are easy to see and read.

Recently, we have streamlined the product portion of our website so that you can easily and quickly find the metal plant markers that are just right for your raised bed or traditional garden. Simply click on the plant marker picture and it will show you our Kincaid Plant Markers options. You may choose the slender 10-gauge posts or the sturdier 13-gauge posts. You can also choose whether you would like your name plates angled behind your posts or your name plates angled in front of your posts. No need to worry about our name plates slipping down the posts. We’ve created a “captive plate” that will never slip or slide down our 100 percent stainless steel.

A raised bed garden might lift your spirit and ease your back pain. We hope our new product arrangement will help you better find the perfect plant markers that fit your garden’s needs whether your garden climbs up from your toes or blooms right near your nose.

Identify Your Plants in Your Pots and Get Them Off to a Good Start

by | posted in: Uncategorized | 0

Poinsettia 1We may think of mainly using plant markers outside in the garden tucked among the lush leaves and blossoms that line a curving pebble path or in an organized herb garden, but plant markers also work very well in potted plants. Even though 100 percent stainless steel plant markers can weather any weather, they are just as beautiful and useful  indoors.

Houseplant names can be just as tricky to recall as their wild cousins outdoors, and visitors to your residence can enjoy your indoor plants just as well as your outdoor plants. Labeling your windowsill herb gardens can also help you when you need a pinch of this or that in your soups, stews and other dishes this winter. Plant markers both outdoors and indoors can help you and your visitors identify your plants.

Potted plants make indoor living spaces cozy and even help clean the air from some dust and pollutants with their health-enhancing leaves. Getting them off to a good start in their containers will ensure they have a healthier beginning and a longer healthier life in your home.

When you plant something in your yard you:

  1. Dig a hole
  2. Amend the soil with some fertilizer or nutrients (optional)
  3. Put your plant in and make sure the roots have room to grow
  4. Water your plant and get it ready to start its new life

Putting a plant in a container mixes these steps around a bit when you use purchased potting soil in containers:

  1. Put the soil in the container
  2. Water the soil
  3. Let the soil drain
  4. Place the plant in the pot
  5. Water the plant
  6. Fertilize the plant as needed

Watering the soil ends up in different steps when you are planting outdoors or indoors. Never put a plant in soaking soil. Muddy soil may have air pockets where the roots may not be able to make contact with the soil.

Some people believe that potting soil dries out too quickly. In order to best saturate your soil with water and keep it moist longer, Garden Mentors recommends using warm water over cold when preparing containers for planting. By watering the soil and then letting it drain before you put the plant in, you can also help your soil retain water more efficiently. Some gardeners will also mix their potting soil with a little soil from their yard to make it a little more dense and less powdery.

By starting your plants off with just the right nutrients and moisture in your soil, you’ll give them a good head start on life. We at Kincaid Plant Markers can help you identify your plants with stakes and labels that will last through the outdoor elements and won’t fade from the sun that shines through your window. Let us help you identify your plants in pots on or off the patio.

Custom Markers for Plants Can Identify the Beautiful Fragrances in Your Southern Garden

by | posted in: Uncategorized | 0

Garden 5What is that beautiful smell? Wouldn’t you like visitors to your garden to exclaim such pleasure? By researching the best fragrant flowers for your region and arranging those flowers in strategic locations you can let your visitors follow their nose through your lovely landscape. And when you have custom markers for plants in your garden you can be sure that they can identify those fragrant plants by name. Plant markers can answer those identification questions in your garden without breaking the silence of a serene and calming landscape.

If you live in the South, you have multiple choices of colorful and fragrant flowers in which you can add to your landscape design. An online article in Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) lists their top three picks for the best fragrant plants for Southern gardeners. Their choices include the following:

  • Fragrant olive (Osmanthus fragrans) This plant is also known as “sweet olive” or “tea olive.” It blooms in the spring and fall.
  • Carolina allspice (Calycanthus floridus) This plant blooms in the summer
  • August lily (Hosta plantaginea) This plant blooms in the late summer each afternoon

Choosing a fragrant plant that blooms for a prolonged period or that will bloom in both spring and fall, like the fragrant olive pick from BHG experts, will offer you more fragrant days in your yard. Planting a fragrant plant will not only fill your yard with a lovely scent, but will enhance your whole neighborhood when the breeze lifts that fragrance right over your fence. With custom markers for plants the neighbors can crane their neck over your fence and identify that lovely scent.

You may also want to choose your plants by the type of fragrance that they emit—just as you would a pleasurable perfume. A beautiful fragrance to one person may be a smelly stench to another, so it’s best to do some research on whether your yard will smell fruity or musky. Fragrant plants can offer orchard smells like the apple-strawberry-scented Carolina allspice. The August lily emits a scent similar to honeysuckle. Most fragrant plant descriptions will disclose their fragrance, but do some research before you go to a nursery and just pick a plant that merely says “fragrant” blossoms.

Placing your fragrant plants strategically in your yard will allow your fragrances to blend with others or stand on their own. You may want to experiment to see what plants work well in groupings—like a fragrant bouquet. Or, you may choose to offer each of your fragrant plants their own air space so they do not have to compete with other heavy-scented plants. Your slender custom markers for plants can work well in groupings of plants or identifying a sole plant.

Kincaid Plant Markers can help your visitors answer their question of what lovely fragrance is wafting through the air in your garden. With one glance, our slender classic silver markers can inform without distracting from the beauty of the plant. With our assortment of stainless steel plant markers you can choose different styles of stakes and different print labels to identify the plants in your yard.

Personally Create Nameplates for Plants With a New Way to Label

by | posted in: Uncategorized | 2

Markers 1With the New Year comes a new way for you to label your plants! If you prefer to create nameplates for plants without the means of a computer labeler, we now offer the supplies for you to do so. Through our website you can order label sheets with UV covers or a paint pen to personalize your label. The new labels offer you a chance to create nameplates for plants without the means of a computer and the ability to change the names on the durable sheets whenever you lose a plant or want to take a few out and add a few different ones.

Perhaps you have a small garden or don’t want to have another machine in your life, the new labels are as easy to store in your desk as a few pieces of notebook paper. Thirty labels that are each 1″ x 2-5/8″ are on one simple sheet. The weatherproof labels are most effective when you add the protective UV stickers over them. Neither damaging weather nor the sun’s strong rays will obscure your hand-printed labels.

If you prefer to completely do without stickers on your stainless steel plant markers, we also now sell a paint pen so you can directly write on your marker. The special 3mm Markal HP marker won’t fade in the sunlight or wear away by the elements. It will permanently honor your plant.

Hand-written labels allow you to use your calligraphy skill, add ornamentation or whimsical graphics around your letters or, literally, put your own personal touch on the markers that help define the garden you so carefully tend.

Once you purchase engraved markers, you hope that your plants will thrive. If you don’t want to replace a plant that has perished or if you purchase different plants, you’ll soon have to pluck your engraved marker out of your plant. Having plant markers with printed labels, either through the Brother P-Touch labeler or by your hand, allows you versatility in your garden. Gardens are rarely static—they are ever-changing, evolving and providing new surprises and joy with each season. When you can personally create nameplates for plants, you save money and resources.

There’s no need to get a whole new plant marker. The stainless steel markers will last forever. You simply peel off the old label, write out a new one, place the UV protection on it and you have a new plant marker. Even if you change your mind after using the Markal HP paint marker you can use mineral spirits to scrub it out and write out a new description for your marker.

At Kincaid Plant Markers, we are continually evaluating ways in which we can help make your gardening easier. While we don’t offer weeding services, we hope that our plant labeling products offer you simplicity, durability and pleasure in putting a name with a beautiful blossom or fabulous foliage!

The Right Labels for Greenhouses Can Follow Your Plants from Seed to Fruit

by | posted in: Uncategorized | 1

Greenhouse 1Homegrown fruits and vegetables can’t be beat for their crisp, flavorful taste. Produce plucked straight from the vine tastes better than produce plucked from grocery store shelves. Greenhouses allow you to enjoy that fresh taste all year around. When you push the tiny seeds into the nutrient-rich potting soil inside the climate-controlled greenhouse, their identity disappears with the rest of the new plants in the room. Only with labels for greenhouses can you distinguish the tomatoes from the peppers before those tiny miracles begin sprouting.

Greenhouses provide gardeners a chance of gardening all year, provide a means of profit for selling produce and provide families fresh, healthy and rich flavorful foods at their fingertips. Creating a greenhouse and maintaining the fruits and vegetables under its roof all year around may seem intensive, but many a gardener likes the challenge and the delicious food that it helps produce. Those who use greenhouses attest that their produce is much more flavorful than the produce in the stores. Hot peppers are hotter, tomatoes are more firm and meatier, strawberries are sweeter and the list goes on.

You can grow many varieties of fruits and vegetables in your greenhouse. Some of the easier vegetables to grow in the greenhouse are tomatoes, green beans, kale, spinach, lettuce and peppers. You can even grow vine-intense plants like squash in order to have some favorite fall foods. With the warmth of the natural sun and the careful watering from indoors, fruits like strawberries will thrive and make your taste buds think it is summer all year long.

Transferring the seedlings into the yard is like letting your child take their first steps alone. It’s the time where they’ll become acclimated to new soil and a different type of sunlight and rain. Thin plastic markers or popsicle sticks won’t last long in the outdoors, but a simple stainless steel plant marker can help identify the new plant and will persevere out in the exposed weather. Sturdy labels for greenhouses can be used again out in the garden as the plant leaves its nursery and heads out into the real world. Why purchase multiple plant markers when one type will work in both spaces for always?

Our plant labels at Kincaid Plant Markers make dependable labels for greenhouses, for yards and for public botanical and natural gardens. Their slender stainless steel posts slip into and out of the soil easily when they need to be moved. They are light yet strong and the plates allow names to been seen easily without having heavy ornamentation around them. Their utility is simple and classic. If you have a greenhouse or are considering building one, consider using Kincaid Plant Markers to label your produce. Kincaid plant markers makes the transfer of plant labels from the greenhouse to the yard easy. Indoor or outdoor, our markers can be lifelong companions with your plants.

Fool Jack Frost and Never Stop Gardening

by | posted in: Uncategorized | 0

Winter Garden 3Do you frown when you have to clean off the garden tools and pack them away for the winter? Some weekend warriors may cheer when the days get a little cooler and grass starts to slowly go dormant for the winter. They pack away the mower and yard tools happily. But as a gardener you may feel a little sadness about the end of the warm sunny season.

There’s something incredible when you can bring the warmth of the sun into your kitchen in the palm of your hand—a fresh tomato plucked out of the July sunshine. Weeds? Well, of course, anyone could do with a break in the year from having to weed the garden—but what if you could choose to never stop gardening?

Experts from the Mother Earth News have some tips on how you can plant and manage vegetables in ways where you can choose to never stop gardening.

  • Plant Much Later for Fall and Winter Abundance
    Gardeners typically plant for their fall in mid-summer, but it’s possible to extend your plant’s growing season by planting crops in late summer and sometimes even after a first light frost.
  • Provide Shelter
    By planting crops on the south side of structures, you can protect them from the cold north wind. Consider planting your vegetables along the house or a substantial fence for some extra protection, too. Water can also provide shelter from frost that can be harmful. Keep plants in the fall very moist. One gardener even kept his tomato plants alive by keeping a soaker hose on them through a frosty night.
  • Keep Them Low to the Ground
    Experts suggest that when you choose vegetables that allow you to never stop gardening, you should choose varieties that can sprawl near the ground rather than climb. The first frosts of the year usually only hurt the outermost elevated parts of a plant. The lower half of the plant is usually spared from freezing until there is a later hard frost. Rather than staking your fall tomatoes to towers, let them trail low to the ground. Purchase bush beans rather than pole beans. By keeping buds close to the ground, you might dodge the frost that will nip the height of your plant and you’ll never stop gardening throughout the late fall.
  • Take a Break from Weeding
    While your vegetables slowly keep producing, you can actually let some of those more leafy weeds act as your winter ally. Their broad foliage can provide some insulation and protection from some frost and cold damage. When the ground starts to warm and plant production speeds up then you can turn the soil and uproot those weeds.

Our sturdy, rust-resistant plant tags at Kincaid Plant Markers don’t fear the frost and neither should you. Careful planning, planting and winter care can extend your growing season through the colder months so you can choose to never stop gardening.

Markers for Peonies, Year After Year

by | posted in: Uncategorized | 1

Peony 1When a peony bush takes root, its found its home. For over a half century, a peony bush may thrive in the first place where it was planted. Peonies make some people nostalgic. They may harken back to the days when grandma hung the clothes on the line while the peonies bobbed their full heads in the spring breeze. You may remember, as a child, being awed by the big black ants that scrambled around the tight flower buds and being surprised by them as they raced out from under a petal as you reached to inhale the flower’s fragrance. We remember those details from the garden, but with markers for peonies you can memorialize the plant and the year it was first planted.

Winter doesn’t frighten a peony. In fact, in order for peonies to have their beautiful spring blooms, they have to have some heavy exposure to the cold. If you will be planting peonies be sure to not plant them more than two or three inches deep. Their roots need to feel that winter cold in order to rejoice with blossoms in the spring. If your peonies were planted long ago, be sure not to build the soil up too much around the base of the plant. Too much added soil or mulch will become a barrier between the plant roots and the nurturing chilly air. There actually is something beneficial about the winter’s chill (besides killing off some pesky insects.)

Oftentimes, unless your peonies are not flowering like they used to, there is no reason to transplant peonies. Dividing your peonies will help the plant produce flowers once again if they weren’t producing. If you choose to divide your plant, garden markers for peonies can help you organize your garden’s arrangement and help remind you where those peonies will rise from the ground in the spring.

Peonies must adjust to a move. Since they can live quite happily in the same spot for decades, they take some time to adjust to a new place to sink their roots in. After peonies have been transplanted they don’t usually bloom for a few years. Your markers for peonies can help mark the place where you’ll see those blooms again.

When dividing your peonies, be sure to pull up plant sections where you have at least three to five “eyes” on the root system. This will help get your plant off to a healthy start. Also, be sure and plant or transplant your peonies in their preferred soil: slightly acidic (6.5 to 7.0 pH) and well-drained.

Let Kincaid Plant Markers help mark history in your home’s yard. Peonies bring the promise of spring and the comfort of family memories. Markers for peonies can be practical and personal. They can memorialize your peonies and can help you keep track of your ever-changing garden landscape. Year after year our 100 percent stainless steel plant markers will survive right alongside your peonies.

A Classical Garden Marker Adapts to Any Garden in the Country

by | posted in: Uncategorized | 0

Roses 3While gardeners in the north pull in their potted tropical plants in early October, gardeners in the South keep enjoying blooms all year round. Gardeners in the southwestern states may not have the beautiful autumnal leaf color, but their succulents are sculptural and hardy. Gardeners from all around the country may feud as to where the best gardening can be had, but when it comes down to it, you should embrace your region’s unique plants and cultivate the plant that thrives.

Plants that are native to your region or cultivated especially for your region will give you the best blooms and hardiest growth. Start with those plants and then you can experiment with whatever other plants you may wish to add. If those secondary plants don’t fare so well, you’ll still have some hardy and easy-care plants left out there to fill in the holes. In order to find your region’s best native plants for gardening you can contact your state’s local Department of Natural Resources. Talk with local landscapers about their best pics that thrive in your region and look around the city at what plants seem to fare the best.

Each region serves up its own delicacy of plants. While the North may look forward to each season’s guaranteed arrivals, the South has consistency and some surprises, too. Fragrant and flavorful plants like lilac, rhubarb and heather may not bloom in the South, but the Southern landscape enjoys the most glorious azaleas, lavender, crepe myrtle, and southern magnolias. Cacti and succulents welcome you to the Southwest and Maples in the Northeast. Each region embraces its flavor of America. Just as diverse are the people of the country, so are its plants and gardens.

Whether your plants grow in dry sand or wet marshes, a classical garden marker can draw attention to their beauty. A stainless steel classical garden marker will withstand Minnesota snows and Louisiana moisture. Plant markers will mark the spot where the tulips will rise up through the soil and will give each rose bush its own individuality. A rose is not just a rose. Their hues and fragrances vary and they each have their own interesting name. Plant markers can give your garden personality when you put a name to your plant’s leaves and blooms. Even in the coldest northern winter your garden will give off a warmth of spirit as your garden markers stand tall next to the withered stems of fall and wait for new growth to sprout in the spring.

Kincaid Plant Markers will thrive in any climate. No need to research soil type, humidity or the most likely week for the first frost. Our plant markers will stay resilient through the seasons without rusting or fading. Whether you garden in the North, South, East or West a classical garden marker can raise your garden from ordinary to upscale.

Finding Your Plant Markers in the Winter

by | posted in: Uncategorized | 1

P-styleWhy would you concern yourself with finding your plant markers in the snow? Well, if you are like some adventurous gardeners, your harvest doesn’t end in November. You might collect lettuce in January and even spinach after the first frost. A little research on good winter crops and flowers combined with a little research on winter care for these plants can turn you into a whole new seasonal gardener.

Can you really continue gardening throughout a Midwest winter? Many gardeners might merely hang up their shovel and hoe in the fall and wait until the spring earth is once again able to be turned. But, for those die-hard gardeners who like a challenge and want to exercise their green thumb throughout the year, there are some plants, with some procedures, that can make it through a Midwestern winter.

In order to keep some vegetables protected enough to keep producing, some gardeners build a cold frame. The plastic-covered cold frame will act as an insulating blanket and keep the plants warm enough and protected as you continue to harvest your plants. The following vegetables are just some of the edibles you can harvest during a Midwest winter:

  • Peas
  • Radishes
  • Lettuce
  • Dill
  • Cabbage
  • Arugula
  • Turnips
  • Brussel Sprouts

If you are more of a flower gardener, you can even enjoy blooms during midwinter. The curvy petals of hellebore can be refreshing blooms when the mid-winter doldrums begin to cloud your mind. The flowers of heather can do the same in December and January. The bright beautiful red-orange berries of witch hazel could light up your yard in late winter.

Yellow, purple or white crocuses pushing through the snow are such a relief to see at the end of winter. Those spring colors herald the warmer and sunnier days of the new year. Other bulbs, including the aptly-named snowdrops, will also bloom while snow still covers the flower beds.

Plant markers can help you anticipate the winter blooms in your yard. Markers serve as hopeful reminders that something wonderful will happen every year in your garden. When you look out into your winter wonderland and see a plant marker poking through the snow, it can raise your spirits. It heralds life and growth and optimism.

We respect the zeal of an outdoor winter gardener. Our Kincaid Plant Markers will be right alongside you all year long as you harvest some green plants or wait for some beautiful blooms to brighten a winter’s day. No winter snow drifts can rust away our 100 percent stainless steel plant markers. When you find your plant markers in the snow, we hope they make you smile as you imagine the next planned surprise that will spring from the ground with life – even in the dead of winter.

Through Snowstorms and With Sturdy Plant Markers– Never Stop Gardening

by | posted in: Uncategorized | 1

Winter Garden 2For some gardeners, late autumn means pulling tomato cages out of the ground and stowing them away in the garden shed or garage for next summer. For other gardeners it’s pulling patio plants inside and maybe harvesting some seeds for next spring. But for some gardeners, the growing season never ends. They never stop gardening because they have a greenhouse they can enjoy all year around.

You might not think of the snowy darkest days of winter as a productive time of year to have produce thriving in your greenhouse, but some people have made this happen. In fact, in the cold depths of Minnesota, there are over one dozen deep winter greenhouses that survive and thrive all winter long.

In order to keep deep winter greenhouses functioning, the air temperature needs to remain at about 42 degrees Fahrenheit. These greenhouses have passive solar heating systems that retain the day’s warmth and release it during the icy chilling early winter morning hours. Fans push down warm air and a gas heater will turn on automatically on severely cold evenings.

Solar energy is also a year ‘round energy source. The greenhouses still use the natural light of day in their deep winter greenhouse so they never stop gardening possibilities. The hours of daylight are much shorter in the winter. One family found that by slanting their clear plastic greenhouse walls at a 60-degree angle they were maximizing the energy of the sun’s rays on these shorter days.

For those of you who severely miss the crisp crunch of your own garden vegetables over the winter months, a greenhouse may be just the right thing for you. A little research can help you determine how to get your project going and we can help you organize it.

Plant markers are important when planting by seed. Before sprouts even push their way out of the soil, plant markers can label a whole section of lettuce or a row of peppers. Simple little stakes can be pushed in and pulled out easily when plants are ready to move from the shelves to the garden or someone else’s garden. Labels can be placed in front of whole sections of a plant so that the entire greenhouse can be in a logical order.

Kincaid Plant Markers can help you keep your plants organized all year long—whether your plants are indoor or outdoor. We offer you 100 percent stainless steel plant markers that won’t rust away from brutal weather or from overwatering. The steel markers are sturdy, but slender and light enough to slip easily into smaller containers without overwhelming the beauty of the plant in the pot. If you never stop gardening, our plant markers will keep right up with you. We intend our plant markers to be reliable and long-lasting. Through every season, including winter, we design our plant markers to herald the arrival of your fresh green new sprouts all year around.