Landscape Architecture Resource

A Landscape Architect must know their plants. Although we work with many different materials including glass, metal, concrete, furniture, lighting, asphalt, brick, stone, and wood (carpentry), knowledge of plant material is one of the things that distinguishes landscape architects from other design fields.

You don't have to know as much as a conservation biologist, ecologist, forester, or horticulturalist, but you must be able to speak their languages. Landscape Architects often play a key role in project co-ordination since and we are one of the few professions who can so effectively translate ideas and issues between civil engineers, planners, architects, ecologists, and the public.

So, considering that there are approximately 350,000 different species of plants, and many varieties, cultivars, and hybrids of each species, how do you begin to learn to identify plants?

When I studied botany as an undergraduate, I took a full-year course in Plant ID. We learned 30 new plants each week, ultimately covering over 700 plants, including the correct spellings of their genus, species, and common names. When you need to learn that many plants in such a short time, you have to have a system.

Luckily, there is already one, thanks to Carolus Linnaeus. The vast Kingdom Plantae is organized along evolutionary lines, and therefore also along similarities in form and function of plant anatomy (generally).

A good place to start is to learn the basic characteristics of the groups of plants: ferns and mosses, gynmosperms (conifers), angiosperms (flowering plants).

Then, learn the main plant families. Often if you can identify which group (family or order) a plant belongs to you can go a long way to identifying it. Leaf shape can be deceptive as it often varies depending on growing conditions. A much more tell-tale sign is the anatomy of the flower, branching patterns of the leaves and stems, and the fruit type produced.

So, learn the difference between maples and oaks, between ashes and walnuts, between dogwoods and roses. For example, maples always have leaves that come in pairs, even if the leaf doesn't look like a maple. Sycamore trees have alternate leaves, even though their leaves look like maples. The rose family always has flowers with 5 petals, except for cultivated tea roses (which are quite frankenstein, botanically speaking). It can be very frustrating when you start out, but the more you learn the easier it gets.