Keeping Track

This year I was thinking of how to keep track of which flowers and other perennials were planted where at our new house. I have been making crude maps of beds in my 6"x9" spiral garden notebook for at least 5 years in one book. This year I added a new method to the old - I took pictures of the dahlia areas when the plants were about 3 feet tall. I didn't know in most cases which tubers ended up where because when they were dug, washed, dried, split, then moved, they got all mixed up. Totally maddening as I wanted to "compose" color schemes in the garden beds. You know, yellows and oranges together, purples, pinks and whites placed together because they go together well. Also, some were planted quite late - June to early July - and the summer wasn't very sunny this year which dahlias need, so they didn't bloom as fast or have enough time to bloom as they would have in a normal year. When I took the pictures, most weren't blooming yet. I printed these pix out on regular printer paper to save the cost of photo paper and to be able to write on them. Then when the plants bloomed, I noted on the print what each was (if I knew from having planted before), or just described by color and size of the flower. I am hoping to find out real names for my unknown dahlias so I took pictures of the flowers when they did bloom, to check against catalogs or the internet.