1 . Be a Better Gardener

There are always lots of things to learn as a gardener, and many of them can only be learned through getting your hands dirty. But there are some things gardeners can learn from reading or watching.     1    .

What plant families are

Actually, plants have formal scientific Latin names. These names help to categorize (分类) plants, and make it clearer to identify and study those plants. Specific plants are specific varieties of particular species. Species are members of a certain genus (属). And each genus belongs to a broader plant family.

    2    . For example, plants in the Lamiaceae family (mint family) include garden herbs such as lavender, mint and rosemary. In the family, members will generally have aromatic (芳香的) leaves, among other shared characteristics.

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Learning plant families can be a great step forward for those who want to identify more plants around them. Even when we cannot identify plants down to species and variety, knowing which family they belong to can often give us a lot of the information we need. This will often help us to understand the broad characteristics of the plant we are looking at, and where it might be placed in our gardens, or which neighbors it will like.

How to learn plant families

    4    . But I find that a good way to begin is by researching the plants we already have in our garden. Find out which family the different plants belong to, and then take a good and long look at those plants to see their characteristics.     5    .