Videos
Hello! I've lurked on this sub for about a year admiring everyone's hard work with their plants, and I finally have a garden of my own to care for! I moved into a new house in SoCal, and the previous tenants left tons of plants in the backyard. I'm talking trees, vines, succulents, etc. A lot of these appear to be fruit/vegetable plants, but I'm not sure what kind. Unfortunatly some of them have already died between the time they moved out and I moved in. Does anyone have recommendations for resources on how to identify these plants, so that I can figure out how to keep the remaining ones alive? I've never had a garden before and I'm very excited but pretty intimidated by how to care for these plant babies.
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:
- Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland
- Colby College. World Wide Flowering Plant Family Identification.
- Dr. Lada Malek
- Shoot Gardening
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.
Hi! We recently purchased a home with beautiful, mature gardens. I love gardening but have no idea what I’m doing. What is the best way to identify the types of plants we have so I best know how to care for them? I think I’ve already killed some by overwatering them. We moved from zone 4 to zone 8 - I just always assume they’re hot and thirsty 🥴