Have any of you labelled your orchard trees with large signs that are readable from say 10 or 15 feet away?
A friend bought an orchard of unknowns that for now need numbers but eventually variety names. She wants large signs like 12 inches square- easy to find, easy to read.
What about cedar shingles with routed lettering? She’s got a healthy budget, part of historic estate. Wonder if clients of @alan have done anything similar that works well?
Is there such a thing as permanent paint for the numbering/lettering? Thanks for ideas.
Have a sign maker construct something to the aesthetic needs of the client.
A better idea might just to be to have a map at the entry of the orchard and normal 2X4" signs on each tree. That pretty much the choice of my clients. You can make a map from a google satellite photo.
I print the plant name on weatherproof clear tape with a Brother P-Touch label printer, then apply it to the aluminum sign. The label printer will print in various fonts and sizes. You can even apply borders and graphics if desired. The printer connects to your computer and has editor software you install on the computer so that you don’t have to try to do all this fancy stuff from the small printer keyboard. You can also save all the label files on your computer so that if you have to make a small change and reprint it later, you don’t have to do it all over from scratch.
It yields a very professional looking result that has held up well for me.
If she goes the route of @alan and does a map with tags, try cattle ear tags. Bright plastic, easy to find in foliage, different colors, marker for these ‘melts’ the ink into them. They’ll last for a couple years, until she might figure out variety and need to rewrite anyway. Not the ones for feedlot short-term use, those fall apart.
Most of my sites require keeping trees pruned above the browse line or at least convenience for mowers to get right under the trees so a single stainless steel screw holds the plastic signs about 3’ above the ground making them easy to find and read. I buy permanent metal ones for $3 a pop that have the fancy look of typical of a botanical garden tag, but without the breaking that happens to laminated plastic after a few years. A single stainless steel screw on the middle top of the sign just needs to be annually loosened a bit. Longer screws could reduce that to a biennial loosening.
The source is Harvey with his link right above. Photos are too much work for me- I’m a tech moron and my wife always helps me when I post photos here and complains about the difficulty of transferring photos from my particular phone.