Labelling plants in the forest garden

I really want to develop a system of permanent labels for my trees and perennial plants, that won't break the bank. At the moment I either have the labels that came with purchased plants or else, for plants I propagated myself, cut-up plastic recyclables (yogurt containers and such) with names written in Sharpie.

The plant names are fading and getting illegible on many labels. I have recently switched to china marker in hopes it will be more durable than Sharpie. But all of these are short term labels. I can't be rewriting the labels for hundreds of plants every year or two.

I need to come up with a long term solution that will remain readable for decades and work both for trees (probably attached to the tree, if that is possible without damage) and also to label shrubs or smaller perennial plants (individuals or groups).

Any ideas?

embossed metal tags. i either buy the kind that they sell for marking industrial storage or cut them out of aluminum cans (which we rarely have). write on 'em with a ball-point pen, the ink will disappear but the writing will remain an identation. attach with wire.

i guess this won't work as well with herbaceous perennials, though. attach to a stick?

greg mosser wrote:embossed metal tags. i either buy the kind that they sell for marking industrial storage or cut them out of aluminum cans (which we rarely have). write on 'em with a ball-point pen, the ink will disappear but the writing will remain an identation. attach with wire.

i guess this won't work as well with herbaceous perennials, though. attach to a stick?

Attach to a stick, or maybe a piece of old plumbing pipe would be more durable. Yes, that could work.

I admit to a caffeine addiction in the form of coke classic, so I do have some empty aluminum cans on hand. What do you find is the best way to cut them, and are sharp edges an ongoing problem?

I like the embossed aluminum idea and it reminded me of when we used these labels from Field and Forest back when we had a lot of different varieties of shiitakes going all at once.  They are small but might work for somethings?  I later used the spent logs in the hoop house beds and am still finding ledgable labels with not a bit of log left.  It is very soft metal though so the writing might not hold up as well as the aluminum cans?

https://www.fieldforest.net/product/Aluminum-Tags/aluminum-tags

I painted wooden garden stakes. It's been roughly 8 years and you can still read them. I even painted them different colors for fruit trees and bushes and a different color for herbs. I also changed the color for fruit trees by year so I can easily see what was planted when.

On this stake you can see the variety, that it's a plum and that it's on Standard rootstock, which is the S.