Flower identification resources

August 3, 2017 2:08 PM

My 3 year old loves to know the names of flowers. Can you recommend a simple flower identification book for common garden and wild flowers (of upstate NY)? I think she’d really enjoy that. It’s important that it’s not just wildflowers - she asks more often about garden flowers and I know less about them. Or, I suppose, which garden catalog would be most enjoyable for a preschooler? Also, can you recommend an app that I could use to ID flowers when she asks while we’re out and about?
posted by Kriesa to Home & Garden (9 answers total)

Best answer: You should try iNaturalist. If the app's neural net can't identify it, the community will usually figure it out, sometimes pretty quickly.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:13 PM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This is called Wildflowers of NY but it includes a lot of garden flowers and it's pamphlet size with a lot of photos. Usually the public library will have the best resources for what is truly local and there may be a Garden Club that has a local ID book that could be fun. If you want to go full-on book, you might want to try one like this which is written for kids and includes a lot of flower and plant illustrations in addition to other nature stuff. When I was a kid, I had some wild flower coloring books which were illustrative but also interactive which I think kids enjoy.
posted by jessamyn at 2:28 PM on August 3, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This may not be exactly what you're getting at, but we love the book Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert. It has illustrations of a number of common garden flowers at various stages of growth, all labeled with names. My preschooler has used it to identify real flowers in our neighborhood.
posted by adiabatic at 2:31 PM on August 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: If you think your budding horticulturalist would enjoy flipping through a catalog, get on White Flower Farm's mailing list. Their catalog is jam packed with colorful photos, and they're based in CT, so their offerings will sync with plants grown in your neighborhood.
posted by missmary6 at 5:54 PM on August 3, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: My 4 year old LOVES looking through the Baker Creek Seed Catalog. It's primarily fruits and veggies but has a pretty solid flower collection as well.
posted by saladin at 6:20 AM on August 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I like Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Flowers, Eastern Version. Lots of nice pictures and a vinyl cover that makes it easy to drag around where ever you go.
posted by PJMoore at 7:01 AM on August 4, 2017

Best answer: Pl@ntNet is another neural net-backed app that will attempt to identify plants based on pictures of leaves and/or flowers.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 7:39 AM on August 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I got you on the app front! GardenAnswers! I have tried a few of the plant identification apps and this one is the best in my opinion. It's kinda clunky looking but it works. (I have loved plants my whole life, so this question hits close to my heart.)
posted by purple_bird at 8:48 AM on August 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

FLOWER FAIRIES FLOWER FAIRIES FLOWER FAIRIES
you get to learn about how to identify plants AND you get some really beautiful illustrations. They're gorgeous and I'm actually using them to learn the plants myself - it's a lot easier to remember plants when you have a fairy to help you.
posted by Acheman at 5:24 AM on August 5, 2017