What system do you use for keeping records of sources of plant material, dates planted, etc?

Do you label trees individually in the forest garden?  Do you keep a working map?  A dedicated notebook?  Do you use excel?

We are still establishing my forest garden, about 4 years in.  Currently, I have everything split between being stored in my head, in scattered notes, emails, slack, etc, but I would like to consolidate my notes and improve my record keeping so that in 20 years, we can still know the genetic lineage of our persimmons, pawpaws, honeyberries, etc.  

Bonus points if your response includes photos!!

I make youtube videos of my plants.     I go back and read the labels. :-)      


Other things to do is photograph the plant and the label and then store them with numbers to a map of the plants.


This can be a real chore if you have many plants.

When I discovered that as was spending as much time record-keeping as I was growing, I immediately stopped keeping records. That means that I can grow twice as much as I was before. Or I can grow the same amount with half the effort.

I let each plant tell it's own story, in each growing season.