How to identify a weird bush in my yard
Standard photo-matching tools and online databases often fail to recognize rare local shrubs or unusual varieties. This leaves people unable to figure out if an unfamiliar plant is a harmless native or an invasive weed threatening their garden.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Searching for images online and asking on community forums for help
- 2Using physical identification guidebooks
- 3Asking online gardening and botany communities
- 4Guessing the grass type based on appearance
- 5Asking online communities for identification help
- 6Using non-selective weed and grass killer
- 7Covering the affected area with a tarp
- 8pull a few clumps to check the rhizomes, roots, and leaf collars
- 9guess based on visual appearance
- 10Using plant identification apps like Picture This
- 11Searching with Google
- 12Pulling the weed up manually before buds open
- 13Using reverse image search
- 14pull them down off the trees and pull as many of the roots out of the ground as I can
- 15Asking online forums for plant identification
- 16Applying glyphosate or triclopyr to remove unwanted plants
- 17Asking online forums for identification
- 18Comparing physical characteristics like size and stems
- 19Using image search tools to look up the weed
- 20pulling it out in little clumps
- 21using special spray instead of pulling
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I'd like to know what it is and whether it's an invasive species or something more local to the area.”source ↗
“I have this bush in the Asteraceae growing next to my house, but I've never seen it anywhere else and can't place it from images online.”source ↗
“Found in my garden a bunch of them I’m wondering if it’s snake eggs?”source ↗
“What kind of grass is this? We are located in Central Kentucky”source ↗
“do I trim this? does it stay small?”source ↗
“do I mulch around the base? do I use landscape tarp?”source ↗
“Sprayed tenacity on this 2 weeks ago and it had no affect. Anyone know what this is?”source ↗
“Not sure if this is the sub for this. Could someone identify what grass this is?”source ↗
“It came from my neighbors yard and has slowly taken over my front yard and the side of my house. Please help!”source ↗
“I’m hoping for some help identifying this grass type based on the provided pictures.”source ↗
“I’m ultimately trying to figure out what it is so I can then determine a good lawn care routine.”source ↗
“I live in southeastern Idaho and there’s these weeds that grow up from the ground very quickly and wrap themselves around the low branches of these evergreens on the property line between mine and my neighbor’s house.”source ↗
“Does anybody know what these are and if there’s a way to effectively and responsibly deal with them? Because I think they’re starving and killing the evergreens and it may even be too late to save them.”source ↗
“Tried searching up with the images and can't find any results. Any ideas?”source ↗
“it pulls out in little clumps. it doesn’t seem like Nutsedge but I have very little experience with sedge.”source ↗
Where this came up
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