Friday
I have a goal to determine what is still alive in my gardens after 30 years of acquiring plants, and to also make positive cultivar ids. This is a job for a detective 
How??? Well, I have my extensive notes and I can also make use of online resources to match cultivar ids, especially when the plant is blooming.
Over the years, there has been many plant genera that have caught my fancy. I had to google the plural of genus because genuses just didn't look right. I've heard the term genera before, but didn't realize it was actually the plural of genus But, I digress... As I acquired more and more cultivars of the same genus, I realized that they can be thought of as collections. I can definitely tell by looking at a plant what genus it is, but the numerous cultivars are a different thing altogether. I want to know which is which, but my plant tagging woes go way back.
Last year I made a good stab at my hosta collection when I was working in the Hosta Haven garden, and the ferns in the Fern Bank garden, but nothing else. So far this year I've identified the cultivars in the galanthus collection and have started on the daffodil and hellebores collections. I've identified the early blooming daffodils, and now that the mid blooming daffodils are making their appearance, I'll work on those.
Other collections with numerous cultivars acquired over the years include anemones, astilbes, clematis, columbine, daylilies, epimediums, iris, lilies, peonies, pulmonaria, tricyrtis... A lot of these have really died out over the years, but others are alive and thriving.
I guess my approach will be two-fold - garden area by garden area as well as by blooms week to week. I'll not attempt to add my new slate labels to all of the plants, just specific cultivars that are part of a bigger collection. There are over 2300 plants accounted for in my database. I'd be lucky if even half of those are still alive, but I'm not optimistic. Maybe for once I'll look at it with the viewpoint of "glass half full" vs "glass half empty", and be amazed and thankful for what IS still alive 
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