How to write a botanical label that stays useful
A good plant label does two jobs. It tells you, or your customer, exactly what the plant is, and it tells them what the plant needs without a search on a phone. Most labels fail at both: a common name that covers three species, a sticker that says "bright, indirect light" and nothing else. This generator lays out the information we put on our own bench cards in York, in the order people read it, and prints it on A4 so you can cut it out, laminate it and push it into a pot or clip it to a shelf edge.
Get the name right
Botanical names follow a simple convention. The genus starts with a capital letter, the species epithet is all lower case, and both are set in italics: Anthurium warocqueanum. A cultivar name is not italic, starts with capitals and sits inside single quotation marks: Monstera deliciosa 'Thai Constellation'. The generator italicises everything up to the first quotation mark automatically, so type the name as you would write it and the label will follow the rule. The family name sits above in small capitals: Araceae for the aroids, Apocynaceae for Hoya, Marantaceae for Calathea and its relatives, Begoniaceae and Cactaceae for Rhipsalis.
Use the accepted name, not the trade name, where you can. Many plants sold as Calathea have been moved to Goeppertia; we print the current name with the familiar one underneath as the common name, which helps customers and keeps your records consistent with the botanical name in Part A of the plant passport that came with the plant.
Give numbers, not adjectives
"Bright, indirect light" means something different in a Cornish conservatory and a basement flat in Leeds. A PPFD range in µmol/m²/s tells a collector exactly how far from the window a plant can sit, especially if they have checked their room with our light and plant finder. Humidity as a percentage tells them whether a plant belongs in a cabinet or on an open shelf, and a temperature range with a minimum warns them off a cold windowsill in January. The watering cue should be something they can check: a depth of dry substrate, or the colour of the mix through a clear pot.
Record the substrate and the date
The line we would never leave off a collector tag is the substrate and when it went in. "Anthurium Epiphytic Mix · AFP 44% · repotted November 2026" tells you a year later why the plant is thriving, or why it is struggling in a mix that has broken down. The genus preset fills in the matching peat-free blend from our substrate range and its air-filled porosity; change it if you blend your own. Keep the same information in a collection repotting log and the tag number links the two.
Collector cabinet tags
Collector mode prints eight 90mm × 62mm tags in a two-by-four grid with dashed crop guides. Each carries an accession number so you can match it to your records. For humid cabinets and terrariums, print onto 250–300gsm card and laminate, or use waterproof synthetic paper; untreated paper wilts within weeks at 80% humidity. Trim with a steel rule and a craft knife along the dashed lines, round the corners with scissors so they do not snag roots, and push the tag down the inside wall of a clear slotted nursery pot where it stays legible without shading the roots. Tick the blank-tag option to fill the rest of the sheet with empty tags you can write on in pencil, which survives water better than most pens.
Retail shelf talkers for plant shops
Retail mode prints four larger bench cards per sheet with the botanical name set big enough to read from a metre away, the care figures in a single column and a boxed price. UK shops must show the selling price of goods clearly, so the RRP box is deliberately bold. Customers in independent plant shops ask the same questions all day: how much light, is it safe for my cat, what should I pot it into? A shelf talker that answers them frees your staff for the conversations that sell rare plants. Stockists who carry our substrates receive printed talkers for every blend with their opening order; see trade and wholesale.
Pet safety, stated plainly
Many aroids contain insoluble calcium oxalate crystals that irritate the mouth and throat of cats and dogs if chewed. The preset marks those genera "Toxic if ingested" and the pet-safe genera, such as Hoya, Calathea and Rhipsalis, "Pet-safe foliage". It is a horticultural label, not veterinary advice; anyone whose pet has eaten a plant and seems unwell should call a vet.