Can anyone recommend an identification guide for Mid-Atlantic garden plants, bushes and ornamental trees? Ideally it would include systematic keys or similar aids suitable for a botanist to use. Thanks 7104Eversfield
Usually such productions are limited to native and naturalized plants of a given area. Kinds of cultivated plants are too numerous for a person to be able to pick up - or these days, click on - a given reference and be able to work their way through keys and arrive at an identification of any and every plant they happen to encounter. Some kinds of plants have tens of thousands of cultivars, with new ones still appearing every year. Since you are in DC you could probably make good use of the collections of the US National Arboretum. It seems quite a few plants wondered about could be encountered there, with labels. Well-stocked independent garden centers will have others on display. And, of course, some put pictures of their mystery plants on the internet and ask what they are.
Thanks - all good suggestions. I find the UCB Botanic Garden forum to be very effective, but it feels like cheating! Maybe I should just relax! 7104 Eversfield
