Many gardeners we know appreciate our wooden craft sticks for marking off different areas of the garden to make it easy to keep track of what’s growing where. It’s a great way to know what to expect when sprouts are starting to grow up from the soil so that it’s easier to distinguish them from those sneaky weeds that always seem to pop up at just the same time. Once the plants are bigger, you may not need a sign to tell you which is a tomato and which is a pepper, but if you grow similar plants, having markers right in the garden can make it much easier to differentiate the dusty rose-brown of your new Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes from a red variety that may be going bad.

From Functional to Fabulous—Your Choice

In their simplest form, flower or vegetable garden markers are simply wooden craft sticks, ranging anywhere in size from popsicle sticks to 12-inch paint sticks, with the type of plant written on them and they are stuck in the ground at the base of the plant, or at the edge of a row or section. To take this simplest route, we recommend a wide-tipped permanent marker because it will mark the garden sticks easily and won’t fade or wash off.

But why not have a little crafting fun and decorate your garden at the same time? To keep it simple, you can paint the stick a solid color with acrylic paint, then write the plant name on it in fancy lettering. You don’t need to be artistic, even big block letters and a few polka dots work wonders for adding some style, but wood paint sticks are certainly an inexpensive medium, and garden sticks make for small projects, so why not experiment a little?

You can go simple with some stars and stripes, or even use the picture on the seed packets to inspire a little painting. And of course, if you are more confident in your artistic ability, the sky’s the limit!

Several Sizes Available

For a large garden, our 12-inch paint mixing sticks are perfect, but for a smaller raised garden or gardening in pots or window boxes, you may prefer to use smaller wood paint sticks. We make them in 8-inch and 9-inch lengths too. The 9-inch are shaped like the traditional larger paint mixing sticks, but the 8-inch have curvy sides, (they are often used as wooden fan handles on paper hand fans).

You can see a great way one of our clients used our paint sticks and for her garden.