How to Identify a Plant

There are several free plant identification apps available for mobile. I use the PlantNet and iNaturalist apps. The first thing I do when I find a plant that I don’t recognize is take a picture of it. I NEVER pull a plant until I know what it is because mother nature is constantly sending us gifts and that scraggly “weed” in the garden may just be a useful native plant (that you would pay top dollar for at the store!).

Once I run it through the plant ID app, I compare it to the results bearing in mind that the results will probably be off. The result will most likely be a related species or maybe a completely unrelated species, so take these results with a grain of salt.

I then Google certain characteristics of the plant. A google search might look something like, ‘weed with small white and yellow flowers + NY.’ I then check the image results and try to find something that looks similar to my plant.

There are also resources from the USDA and state/county agricultural agencies that list pictures and information about noxious weeds and common agricultural weeds. You can also Google ‘common weeds of (state)’ and see what comes up. All of these sites are helpful for identification and general knowledge.

If I still have no idea what a plant is, I may post it in an online gardening group to see if anyone else can identify it. Gardening groups on Facebook are very helpful and posting there usually works well, but it’s really not cool to be posting for plant IDs every time I encounter a new plant, so I start from the top (apps) and work my way down (online forums).

One thing I recommend is taking pictures of common weeds around your home in different stages of growth and in different seasons to really familiarize yourself with them. I used to take pics on my phone, identify them and write a quick note on the pictures, so that I had my own image library for reference. After a while, I stopped doing this because I became adept at identifying the weeds in my area.

If you happen to identify an aggressive invasive plant or a noxious weed like poison ivy, then pull it out right away so it doesn’t go to seed and spread. Don’t worry, you will probably miss a few of these nasty plants and you will encounter more mature versions later on. It’s still useful and part of learning about the variety of plants that surround us.

If you really work on identifying plants this year, then next year you will be a like a pointy-eared doberman guard dog, ever-vigilant against weedy types, and you will save yourself a lot of headaches when you’re able to pull weeds as they emerge instead of waiting to see what they are. Happy identifying!