I'm pretty new to gardening and landscaping. Having recently bought a house, one of the things I'd like to be able to do is identify the trees and smaller plants that are on the property so I can learn how to take proper care of them. Rather than post a bunch of pictures here, how do you go about identifying unknown plants and trees? Are there resources (online and free are a bonus!) that you go to?
Tell me more
×
Gardening & Landscaping Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for
gardeners and landscapers. It's 100% free, no registration required.
|
|
There are a few plant identifier webpages where you can get answers (by color of the flower, shape of the leaves, etc.) and the page shows list of the matching plants. Sometimes it's not easy to identify. A few examples of those web pages: |
||||
|
|
|
Botanic gardens usually have a free plant identification service. Plant nurseries are usually helpful, but remember they are businesses, so if you want to continue getting advice long term it's a good idea to buy something from them occasionally. If there are some neighbors who have a nice garden or similar plants, strike up a conversation. People are usually quite happy to talk about their garden, so you find out what's growing in yours and get to know your new neighbors :o) Google image search lets you drag and drop an image into the search box. After you drop the image, Google shows you a handful of similar images, then lets you enter a description to weed out irrelevant matches. Web Weed Lookup is handy for identifying weeds. You still have to compare the plant to the photos. In Australia: If you suspect something is a weed you can take it in to the council and they will send it off for identification. The Department of Primary Industries (e.g. Qld DPI) have information about pest weeds, but it isn't always easy to find. Weeds in Australia has a weed identification tool where you enter the weed type, flower colour, and state. |
||||
|
|
|
Leafsnap is an iPhone and iPad app which will identify trees based on photographs of their leaves, bark or flowers. Obviously this won't help with the other plants you need to identify, but it should help with the trees. At the moment they only have the trees found in a few states in the US in the database, but they are hoping to extend it soon. |
|||
|
|
|
The main problem with searching via picture or description is the amount of time that you'll spend examining each result trying to locate your plant. There's no "Google for plants" (yet), so the amount of time it'll take you to find what you're looking for is probably going to be tremendous. Your local nursery (or possibly a university) is going to be your best resource. You can take a picture or even a sample of a plant with you and someone who's familiar with your local foliage should be able to recognize what you have. |
|||||||||
|
|
Below are a few things I done in the past, and continue to do (generally with good results):
To try to provide a more specific answer to the original question, I contacted the "Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, AZ" directly (according to "JavadocMD" profile they're in "Phoenix, AZ") and asked them:
Hope the above helps a little... |
||||
|
|
|
Perhaps the easiest way to identify them is to take samples of the leaves/fruits/flowers to your local gardening center. They should be able to identify it for you. If not, you can go to your town botanist (if there's one). You can also post a question on this site (see these questions for examples on how to post such questions) and tag it identification. At minimum, it should have a clear title that describes the plant, a good picture of the leaves, flowers/fruits and perhaps the entire plant and most importantly, it should also indicate where you are located as that greatly aids in identification. Sometimes, a picture of the root may be necessary and you'll be asked for it. Identifying over the internet may not be as precise as contacting an experienced person (especially because one cannot smell the plant). However, the number of correct identifications on this site has been pretty high. |
||||
|
|
|
I was trying to identify a common shady non-native trees in the Adelaide parklands for ages, but found help at http://www.oplin.org/tree/leaf/byleaf.html where you can drill-down to more and more specific groupings by leaf or by fruit, using the pictures and descriptions provided at each fork. Unfortunately the database isn't exhaustive and they didn't have my tree there (super common Ulmus glabra) but should be helpful in North America, where its targeted. |
|||
|
|
|
You could try an online plant identification service like What The Flora?. You submit plants for identification by tweeting a photo with the hashtag #whattheflora |
|||
|
|
protected by Lorem Ipsum Dec 16 '12 at 2:32
This question is protected to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.
