How to Master Plant ID in 4 Easy Steps.
Plant ID is tricky.
Like learning another language and for this monolingual person... gah!! It’s my gardening kryptonite. It’s often a challenge for gardeners, so if you struggle you are not alone.
My education for gardening was not focused on plant ID. It was on scale, layout, composition (design stuff) and matching plant requirements to location.
Any ID learning ... was left to me. *gulp*. I got into the game just before plant ID apps became a thing. Cue a client wanting an on the spot ID. Instead of a plant name coming to my tongue, a little stress induced stomach acid leaked out instead. As painful a process as it was I had to rip that band aid off.
What helped was realizing that everyone goes through it. No one is born knowing all the plants. A robust Plant ID vocabulary doesn’t take form overnight and stop. No instant downloads. It is an ongoing learning process. As the saying goes, it’s the journey and not the destination.
How do I teach myself and my kids plant ID’s?
Adjectives.
Before plant ID apps. Before snapping a picture or asking online, there was Google. Pre Google one asked other people. In order to ask for an ID you have to “paint” a picture of the plant. This looks like “yellow bell-shaped flower, 4 petals, blooms in June, full sun, red leaves” results would give you new terms and you would fine tune your search using this new vocabulary. This teaches the parts of a plant and helps train the eye to notice the subtle details.
Seeing it everywhere.
Once you take note of a plant you start to see it all the time. Like getting a new car, you think you are so unique until you take it for a spin and see everyone in the same silver SUV. Seeing it again and again you’ll be able to note it’s preferred growing conditions (always by a river etc), how it appears in different months of the year and many other nuances that will further familiarize you with this being.
Don’t ask.
At least not right away. The more you go through hurdles to figure it out the more staying power the final information holds. Push into the burn. This is where muscles are made. Remember the last time you met someone, was told their name and could not remember it by the end of that conversation? The same thing will happen here if you haven’t associated the name with other information. Going through these hurdles automatically does this for your brain.
OK Ask.
I like the inaturalist app but it’s had about a 70/30 accuracy range for me. None of the apps are perfect. They all use similar recognition software and it is not a perfect science. What I prefer are Facebook groups. You’ll sometimes get a few conflicting responses, but this gives the chance to fine tune your own research again, fact checking to verify the ID.
Naming the beings around us creates a sense of familiarity, comfort and community. We are far from alone in this world but we are currently out of touch. Greeting our fellow beings by name is a simple way to rebuild that relationship.
I like starting with common names. I find the Latin overwhelms and derails my efforts. But Latin matters so much. Especially when dealing with native plants.
Like this #pasqueflower. It is so fuzzy!!! Super psyched to stumble upon it as it is often touted as a native. But there’s a native (Pulsatilla patens) and non native and rarely do nurseries in Southern Ontario offer the native. Why? It’s habitat range is North-Western Ontario. This one appears to be a Pulsatilla vulgaris variety, not native. How do you know the difference?
Look closer at the flower: Both varieties have 5 petals but the colour and shape of the petals is different. If you would like to see one in person, this little flower can be found at the Toronto Botanical Gardens, by the front entrance to the main building. It blooms in April.
