It was a rough winter for my zinc garden markers. Last week I had to replace most of them in my front yard flowerbeds because they looked like this:
I’m guessing it’s salt damage. We don’t use a lot of salt on the nearby sidewalk, but we still shovel and blow snow from the street in the direction of the flowerbeds. And the city also sprays a brine solution on the streets before big snowstorms.
Some of the tags had one or two legible words on them, and I was able to use garden journal notes or photographs to figure out the cultivar. Others offered no clues:
I tried washing off the residue, but that made the writing disappear as well.
I’m confident that I successfully replaced about 85% of the markers. The rest of the plants will remain a mystery until they start blooming later this summer.