For a gardener knowledge of plants is very fundamental. Growing plants and flowers in your garden without knowing anything about them would be more frustrating. Your friends and relatives and visitors would be highly impressed if you can explain details about the plants in your garden. That makes you an enlightened and aware gardener also.You must be amazed to know that there are nearly 0.25 million flowering plants in the world belonging to various species. It would be really difficult to know everything about all those quarter a million flowering plants. And then there are other plants and crops also. It is a hilarious task indeed.

An expert botanists or a horticulturist would be more appropriate to look for an answer to queries about hundreds of thousands of plant varieties. An expert would probably know more. There is no doubt about it. But how much you should know then?

An answer to this question is really not that simple because there is no limit to the extent of knowing things in detail. But as a gardener few fundamental aspects must be clear to you. Let us have an idea of one of these fundamentals.

Identification of a plant is the first requirement. Here comes in the botany. You should have an introductory idea of fundamentals of botanical aspects. Try to understand them as a student. Take help of some very basic books and spend some time with related websites as well. You must try to understand the classification of plant kingdom.

A fair idea about the species’ classifications would also be quite helpful in this regard. Fundamentals of botany would also let you understand the various parts of a plant and their functioning. Roger Spencer, an expert botanist from Australia says,”ideally we need flowers, but any cluster of fruit, leaves, and interesting bark are clues as to what a plant might be”.

“We then compare the plants that we’re dealing with, with herbarium specimens we have collected. The herbarium specimens are known and identified plants. Then we have a range of books specialising in particular plant groups, and a microscope to look at the fine detail of the plants”, says Roger Spencer.

Flowers of a plant are key factors in identification. An expert would be more dependent on a flower when identification becomes more complex. At this stage botanical keys and choices are used and answers to specific questions are searched in to. Are there ten petals in the flower? Does the plant have five stamens? Does the flower have an inferior ovary?

Questions like these are fundamental and absolute certainty cannot be ensured without exploring them in detail. But as a gardener do you need to expertise up to this level? Probably this would not be necessary for you as a gardener. It is the job of an expert botanist like Roger Spencer or an expert horticulturist. You can always take help from these experts. However, it is always recommended that you must have some basic fundamental concepts cleared before you proceed to know any detailed information about any plant or if you are thinking to seek help of an expert.

We thought to have prepared a tentative list of all those possible basics and fundamentals that an active gardener must be aware of but it would have been unfair without knowing the views of readers, visitors, gardeners, and experts. So we zeroed in to leave it open for everyone. Let’s see how the list builds up!

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