Lol Cammomile, I often think the same! Unless it's something I'm growing myself, I'm usually completely stumped!

Well some of us have been in the trade professionally, so to speak, so that means we'll find it easier - some people on here work in garden centres, and they're pretty good at ID, loads better than me I reckon, cos they get to see lots of different plants. Otherwise, its what you've grown yourself, but I must confess, I have loads of books here; for instance, trees aren't my thing, not a tree surgeon, just a plantswoman, so I have a little ID book by Mitchell Beazley which is absolutely brilliant for identifying trees. I do so like to know, its the reason I started in gardening - all those plants in the local park, when plants were bushes or flowers to me, and I had no idea what any of them were. Who knew that plants could have purple leaves, I was hooked...

It's really interesting to read the answers and what a lot of good tips we get too. I am still laughing over owdboggy and his furtling around in his garden!! I pootle but I'm not sure about furtling - sounds a bit East Anglian to me!! Perhaps furtling is better than pootling. Lol.

I have a few books that i have bought over the years and of course you get to know some plants as you go along, i also subscribe to Gardeners World magazine think i have just picked up some knowledge along the way! My grandad was a great influence on me with plants and my mother knows all the wild flowers so i guess its inbred too!

Good thing you didn't use the term inbred and East Anglian in the same answer, Sewingkilla, lol! That's one thing I don't know, the wildflowers, would quite like to but never seem to have the time...

I have some very good friends from Norfolk and furtling is just the kind of word they would use - no disrespect intended to anyone from that side of the country.

Owdboggy furtles, Cammomile pootles and I fossick. I've always been interested in the names of plants, it's another way of being an anorak. I don't always remember the whole name, usually have the first part but have to look up the second part of the name.

I have a relative in Norfolk! I poodle, must be a variation of pootle I guess...

Cheat my friend!! Take a photo of the plant you want Id for; and we will try our best to tell you the name of it. One of us have got to know

In derbyshire we potter about or faff about.regarding plants,some i know though not many, most i know by their common names.

I try to identify those things I dont know. from being little I have always asked 'what is that?' I also studied botany and zoology at uni and taxonomy [the science behind names] was part of it. I love the fact that the latin name can tell you so much about the plant. eg lutea means yellow. alba white etc.

i work in a garden centre and get to see a lot of plants, i have worked in nurseries and with plants all my life so know quite a few, but i must admit, there are folks on here that are very knowledable and very quick with ID of plants and i just love this site for the help it gives..

Personally I mooch! Just looked it up - means to wander aimlessly!! Sounds about right, just wander and look at the pretty plants and pretend I know what I'm doing. That's why I love this site, the knowledge between you all is amazing!!
Not sure who mooches around the country I'm a Manc living in Essex!!

We 'fiddle and **** about' in our garden. It's a phrase that deftly describes our attempts to bluff the locals that we know what we're doing while actually not doing much at all! I have learnt sooooooo much from this site with regards to identification along with care of plants, propagation, planning, soil improvement etc. etc. etc. In fact I think I can say that I owe the success of growing veggies and flowers not only to my Dad - who was a keen gardener - but to the wealth of knowledge found on this site. :o))

Being Lancashire bred (and buttered) I have never even been to Norfolk. Furtling as I know it means looking in, pootling is collecting small insects in a pootle jar, mooching is wandering aimlessly as said, never managed to fossick and definitely don't **** in the garden.
As to knowing about plants, it is having a good memory and remembering the ones that one sees. Also helps having read a huge number of books on plants (we have 16 metres of book shelves of garden/plant books).
Wish I had known 50 years ago what I know now and had gone to Uni to do Botany rather than History.

Having a good memory i think is 'it' for me, plus having a mother who was plant-mad (still is really!).
Reading quite a few gardening books too, that's helped.
And, i think sites like these help a lot though because folks new to gardening will see something they like, write it down and i would imagine it'll stick in 'their' memory too and off they go aswell - hooked !!!

I seem to be able to write and spell the names better than i can pronounce them sometimes !
By the way, 'i' pootle, potter, womble and mooch ! ;-)

mooch, yes, but here it means just wandering about moodily (my son was good at that) and faff? Well faffing around means you're wasting time inefficiently trying to do something badly!

You must have had a lot of patience with all that mooching he did, Bamboo :-(

Yea, right, I'm a lot of things, but patient ain't one of them, lol! thank god he's grown up and lives in Bath, seems to be functioning okay.

Distance is a great thing at times ;-)
Bath's quite close to me, used to go there a lot when i had more spare time.

Now that completely threw me - you changed your avatar between one comment and the next!

Booo ;-))