Check around town for some inexpensive, synthetic yarns in wild colors so they stand out better. Craft stores, sewing stores, perhaps even Wally World (if they still sell sewing supplies in your area, they don’t here) are all potential sources. You might even find some at Big Lots. All you need is something available in brilliant colors, lasting at least one season, available inexpensively. You could easily twist two colors together to broaden your selection. Machine washable synthetics should retain their colors well enough to last your season, even in the worst of the heat and sun. They won’t break down in the landfill, but that means they’ll last long enough for you to use. And, you should be able to find some really brilliant, ugly colors cheaply, so they’ll fit the budget and remain easily seen on the roses. Your wife will hate it! LOL!
For those of you that use yarn, colored wire, even colored paper have you had any problems with your markers ending up utilized by birds?
I was wondering about that myself, Henry. I think the Robins would work until they loosened them and made a multi-colored nest here.
I have never had a problem with birds in 25 years using the 4" strips of telephone wire twisted a couple of times around the stem. I could see it happening with the colored yarn, as it is a lot more eyecatching.
Historical 1969 (or 2006?) thread on this subject:
http://www.rosebreeders.org/forum/read.php?2,8422,8442#msg-8442
I use the same method as John does. Home Depot sells telephone wire and thermostat wire (more color combinations) by the foot. It is very inexpensive when you buy it this way.
I have never had a bird or rodent try to remove any of my identifying wires either. I have had a few deer swallow some (along with the attached hip), but that is another subject. I keep the identifying wires with my hips after they are picked (and later during stratification). I only separate the two during seed planting time.
I like using wires because they are not distracting in the garden while the roses are ripening the hips. Other methods have had some interesting comments made about them made by my wife.
Andy
As Henry writes, some of the more interesting topics come up again and again. Every time I read about this topic I learn something new, as new members join in. That is the beauty of the forum.
…Or in my case, relearn something old that I had completely forgotten about! LOL. (I wonder how often I repost the same thoughts on this forum and don’t even realize it.)
Get used to it, Philip! Now you have Charlotte, you’re going to be repeating yourself BIG TIME! LOL!
Cuz she inherited my brains and left me with none? 
(So far, the repeating is mostly monosyllabic and baby talk.)
Possibly, but primarily because monosyllabic repetition turns your brain to mush! LOL!
Philip,
I’m laughing at you comment about how lovely the roses must look once all the flowers fade!
It reminded me of an incident when I started working for the program back in the mid 90s. We used to do pollinations outside (near a busy road). One day, while Katrina and I were out working amongst the roses we had a car pull over and a few older ladies popped out. They were exclaiming that they had never seen a blue rose before and were so excited that we had created one. Of course, Katrina and I were like ‘What! Where!?!’. Only to realize that they were referring to the blue flagging hanging on the bush. They were so disappointed…but we all had a good laugh when we realized what happened!
True about them being conspicuous…I just ignore them until around this time (then I start watching them intently). And honestly, I don’t want them to blend in too much! If they happen to fall of the bush, I can find them easily.
I would think that the wire method would offer you the most inconspicuous approach. However, if phone wire is like electric wire, then price goes up as the price of copper increases. But, if you’re just buying small sections it shouldn’t break the bank! You may also be able to come up with some cleaver methods of finding it for free. The advantage we have of living in a college town is that the students throw EVERYTHING away at the end of the semester. You’d be surprised at the myriad of uses a discarded clothes iron can give you!
We’ve never had any trouble with birds or rodents removing labels. (Even when we were pollinating outside.) We do however have a snake living in the greenhouse…so he may be keeping the rat/mice population down enough that they are more interested in staying alive than using our flagging as nesting material!
Andy- I’m dying to hear about the deer incident!
Nat, Andy and all,
I picked up some phone wire some years ago when the phone company was working on a switching box not too far from home. At that time there were often small lengths of cable left lying on the ground. Now they probably take all those pieces when they leave, although if you see someone working now, it might not hurt to stop and ask if you could have some left over bits if you tell them what you are doing and not selling it to buy pot or something!
Ya know, thinking about an earlier thread where someone said they labeled the hips with a paint marker, and thinking about the whole “color-x-designates-cultivar-y” thing has me thinking…,
I wonder if buying up a few dozen different colors of spray paint and just “tagging” your hips would work. That would sure make fast work outta it!
I’d be afraid the paint would be toxic to the plant and I wouldn’t want the over spray on me or any of the other plants.
Unfortunately for me, I have to avoid anything that is color coded because of my color blindness. Most likely I wouldn’t see any difference in the color ranges I can’t see and where the colors get too similar.
But I think the paint idea could work dor others, just not on the plant itself. If you can get a hold of some of those small plastic plant i.d. flags (a smaller version of the labels that nurseries like Chamlee’s use to i.d their plants around the plant stems) you can put a dab of paint (probably oil based) with a unique color for each pollen plant. Spray paint would work too.
I tried to do a google search to show exactly what I am talking about but my search criteria must be off because I can’t find these types of labels. Any one have a name to these type of labels? I was thinking of finding some for identifying other plants too.
Andre,
Don’t let the color blindness get in the way! Not only is my boss color blind, but over the years we’ve had several undergrad/grad students that were also color blind.
I’m the one who has to be mindful of those who have color blindness around me. Depending on the type of color blindness, I just can’t use things like: red in any combination…if I use blue, I cannot also use purple…I try to stay away from pink, but the boss man says he can tell it’s different than white (so when desperation sets in, I’ll use it!).
Just pick a system that works for you!
‘Small plastic plant id flags’ Are you referring to the vinyl flexible labels? Look here: Vinyl Labels
Personally, I’d say away from the spray paint. First you’ll need to test different brands to see which will actually adhere to plant material and then you’d have to determine which would last long enough to be useful. And…well…when I work with spray paint, I think I end up with more paint on me than whatever I’m working on! 
Thanks Natalie, those were exactly what I was looking for. I just wasn’t using the correct search terms on Google and my head hurt after trying a few combinations.
Over the years I have had to work around the color blindness issues similar to what you describe. When it comes to blues and purples, I really have to study the color before I can figure out what it is, and then I am usually wrong. My wife LOVES to correct me. Browns and greens are pretty disastrous too. I once bought a pair of pants for work that I thought looked alright. My wife told me they were the most hideous shade of green she had ever seen. I never go clothes shopping without her now. My son is only 8 months old now and we have 6 bottles with different colored caps. I can see the two yellow caps fine. The other four are white, except my wife says one is white, one is green, one is blue, and the other is pink.
When it comes to bloom color it can be a crap shoot for me. I have to get another opinion or else I might label a pink as lavender or a pale lilac as white. Thankfully there is always some one around to keep me on the straight and narrow.
I had a manager who was color blind many years ago. His wife sewed the Garanimals they use to teach kids with in his clothes so he could tell the colors apart. You could tell when he dressed himself without them. Nothing went together. He transferred out to the desert after few years and called to say he’d bought a new beige car. It was corn yellow. When he and his wife separated, she removed the Garanimals. You could really tell. Not even his socks matched. My brother in law has one brown and one blue eye. Each looks natural by itself. He can’t see reds well but cobalt blue excites him visually. He’s gotten very good at differentiating between shades of various colors through comparison, but he reads trig text books for fun.
Natalie,
I live out in the woods in Northern Rhode Island, and for years we had a dog who kept the deer out of the garden. But, she developed cancer, and we had to put her down. It was one of the saddest things I ever had to do.
A few years later, I was sleeping in on a Saturday morning after a long, hard week of working until 11:30-12:00 at night, and my wife and kids watched a cute little doe-eyed deer come into the garden and have breakfast. Instead of shooing away the vermin, they took pictures to show me how cute he was, and how I had missed something really special. I thought I had a bunch of nice, big, plump hips full of seeds, but I now have a 1/2 dozen fuzzy, out of focus pictures of the “cute” little deer who had a snack one morning in the garden. The roses that he feasted on was full of almost-ready-too-harvest hips. I guess I shouldn’t sleep in after a long, hard week’s worth of work ever again.
Andy
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