Plant Identification
 

I have recently moved into a new house and inherited a rather large garden which was over grown, I am about half way through the weeds and managed to find several small trees, Large & small shrubs and some plants.

Hanging baskets have been my limit until now so identifying them all is proving quite difficult, I have purchased several gardening books & magazines but they only seem to be helpful if you already know which plant you are dealing with (which of course I don't) I have one which is currently called "That nice pink shrub on the lefthand side" & "that lovely purple one at the bottom of the garden"

Does anybody know of a site with plenty of photo's that I may find useful, I need to know what they all are!

Any help will be most appreciated....

In article , Lorraine_6865
writes

I have recently moved into a new house and inherited a rather large
garden which was over grown, I am about half way through the weeds and
managed to find several small trees, Large & small shrubs and some
plants.

Hanging baskets have been my limit until now so identifying them all is
proving quite difficult, I have purchased several gardening books &
magazines but they only seem to be helpful if you already know which
plant you are dealing with (which of course I don't) I have one which
is currently called "That nice pink shrub on the lefthand side" & "that
lovely purple one at the bottom of the garden"

Does anybody know of a site with plenty of photo's that I may find
useful, I need to know what they all are!

Look out for books by Martyn Rix and Roger Phillips - lots of good
photos, and they arrange things roughly in order of flowering, so if you
see something in there that you recognise as something in flower around
you at the time, then the other flowering bushes you are trying to
identify are likely to be in the same area of the book.

Another good way is to pay frequent visits to a garden centre - you can
see the plants live, and they all have labels. It'll give you a better
identification than you get from a photo.

Remember that plant classification is based on flowers - two things can
have similar leaves and not be in the least bit related, but if what you
are looking at has 5 petals and the picture in the book has 4, they are
very unlikely to be the same thing.

Finally, if you can post photos to a web site or to a newsgroup which
accepts photos (uk.rec.gardening does not - you need a newsgroup
beginning alt.binary or similar) then people on urg are more than happy
to try to identify things.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

"Lorraine_6865" wrote in
message ...

I have recently moved into a new house and inherited a rather large
garden which was over grown, I am about half way through the weeds and
managed to find several small trees, Large & small shrubs and some
plants.

Hanging baskets have been my limit until now so identifying them all
is
proving quite difficult, I have purchased several gardening books &
magazines but they only seem to be helpful if you already know which
plant you are dealing with (which of course I don't) I have one which
is currently called "That nice pink shrub on the lefthand side" &
"that
lovely purple one at the bottom of the garden"

Does anybody know of a site with plenty of photo's that I may find
useful, I need to know what they all are!

Any help will be most appreciated....


--
Lorraine_6865

Is this the lovely purple shrub you refer to?

http://www.midwestlandscapeplants.or...?speciesid=536

and is this the 'Nice pink shrub on the lefthand side'
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/988/

Regards,
Emrys Davies.

In article , michael adams
writes

The only real danger might be pruning stuff in the wrong way so
you lose next years flowers etc. So I'd suggest you first try and
identify any plants that you're tempted to cut back.

But if you really have to cut back, then just after flowering is a
reasonable rule of thumb.

If you prune at the wrong time, you won't kill the plant - you'll merely
lose next years flowers (and have to wait two years before you can
identify it ;-) )

The only caveat is - if you want to cut something back drastically, say
to less than half its original size, it's probably best to do it over
two years - cut half the branches right back this year, then (providing
the bush isn't sulking too much) cut the other half next year.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 16:29:18 +0000, Lorraine_6865
wrote:


I have recently moved into a new house and inherited a rather large
garden which was over grown, I am about half way through the weeds and
managed to find several small trees, Large & small shrubs and some
plants.

Hanging baskets have been my limit until now so identifying them all is
proving quite difficult, I have purchased several gardening books &
magazines but they only seem to be helpful if you already know which
plant you are dealing with (which of course I don't) I have one which
is currently called "That nice pink shrub on the lefthand side" & "that
lovely purple one at the bottom of the garden"

Does anybody know of a site with plenty of photo's that I may find
useful, I need to know what they all are!

Any help will be most appreciated....

Look out for "The Royal Horticultural Society Gardeners' Encyclopedia
of Plants and Flowers" published by Dorling Kindersley (not to be
confused with the RHS A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, also by DK).
The former has lots of pictures and categorises garden plants by size,
flowering season and flower colour, so if you've got a tall shrub that
has yellow flowers in the spring, you can go to the relevant pages for
possibilities. The A-Z encyclo is an alphabetical list, so you need to
know what the plant is before you can look it up, as you say in your
post. The pictures are the same in both books.

Look for good second-hand copies on the Advanced Book Exchange
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchEntry
and restrict your search to UK booksellers only.


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

"Lorraine_6865" wrote in message
...

I have recently moved into a new house and inherited a rather large
garden which was over grown, I am about half way through the weeds and
managed to find several small trees, Large & small shrubs and some
plants.

Hanging baskets have been my limit until now so identifying them all is
proving quite difficult, I have purchased several gardening books &
magazines but they only seem to be helpful if you already know which
plant you are dealing with (which of course I don't) I have one which
is currently called "That nice pink shrub on the lefthand side" & "that
lovely purple one at the bottom of the garden"

Does anybody know of a site with plenty of photo's that I may find
useful, I need to know what they all are!

Any help will be most appreciated....
Lorraine_6865

Tree ID (with photos):
http://home.sullivan.k12.il.us/teach...ree%20key.html

Shrub IG (bit technical):
http://www.reticule.co.uk/flora/content/SEARCH.ASP

And here's a site for looking up perennials-you put in colour, time of flowering
etc.......might be useful :~)
http://www.perennials.com/search.html

The book I find most useful is the "Gardeners Encyclopaedia of Plants and
Flowers"
It has things grouped by size, colour and time of flowering.
Whenever I get stuck, I leaf though it and usually find what's what :~))

HTH Jenny

Thank you all very much for your help, firstly I managed to purchase a book on shrub's by Roger Phillips & Martyn Rix (Cheers Kay) Its great & helped a great deal with lots of pictures, I'm still looking for the Gardeners Encyclopedia by DK as this will help with some of the other plants.

Emry's you were spot on with the "Pink Shrub" thats exactley it & without a photo too, I have spent ages on Daves Garden Site & its proving really useful so thanks for that!

I am in the process of taking photo's of everything in the garden & hopefully soon they will all have names! Well off I go again with my camera....(maybe I should publish a book called "The beginers guide to plant recognition" when I'm done .....lol)

Once again thank you all very much

In article , Lorraine_6865
writes

Thank you all very much for your help, firstly I managed to purchase a
book on shrub's by Roger Phillips & Martyn Rix (Cheers Kay) Its great &
helped a great deal with lots of pictures, I'm still looking for the
Gardeners Encyclopedia by DK as this will help with some of the other
plants.

Phillips and Rix also have two volumes on perennials which are very
good, and one on annuals which I haven't got since I don't grow annuals.


--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

"Lorraine_6865" wrote in
message ...

Thank you all very much for your help, firstly I managed to purchase a
book on shrub's by Roger Phillips & Martyn Rix (Cheers Kay) Its great
&
helped a great deal with lots of pictures, I'm still looking for the
Gardeners Encyclopedia by DK as this will help with some of the other
plants.

Emry's you were spot on with the "Pink Shrub" thats exactley it &
without a photo too

I am wondering if the 'Lovely purple one' is a
http://www.gardeningexpress.co.uk/Pr...roductID=10637

Regards,
Emrys Davies.

Thanks for that Kay, I will look out for them, I did see a few by Roger Phillips & Martyn Rix, one on trees & the other on bulbs but that was all the book store had. I will try another one this week!

Emrys thanks for trying again but that isn't it either, I have managed to take some photo's of the shrub's, now I just need to find out how to post them on the net (never done this before!) It could take some time .....lol

I didn't realise there was so many varieties of Rhododendron's, I have given up trying to name my two (at least I know how to look after them now!) It seems that I have all sorts lurking amongst the weeds on the " not yet done" side of the garden, I found a pinkish coloured Cordyline underneath it today (not sure if the leaves should be that colour) Hopefully tomorrow will bring a nice suprise too! I will be glad when I get finished as its taking ages.

I will let you know if I manage to get my photo's posted anywhere & thanks again for your help!

Regards
Lorraine