[Virtus]

Hi there,
I'm not sure if this is the right forum to be asking but thought I would ask anyway. Could anyone recommend a good book or resource for identifying shrubs and trees? Rather then constantly asking people here I'd prefer to read up and try and do it myself.

I have been looking at a couple of books on amazon and its hard to know where to start. I know experience is probably more important, but if anyone could recommend a good reference book and perhaps some sort of guide to identification that they found good that would be great!

[Sive]

Any of the RHS ( Royal Horticultural Society ) books that I have are of very good quality. If they have published any specifically about shrubs and/or trees, I imagine they would be equally good.

[Virtus]

Thanks Sive, I was actually going to order a couple of those. I found their website to be quite good as well!

[Greengage]

Are we not fulfilling your needs here
If its wild flowers of Ireland I would recommend Rodger Philips books, Zoe Devlins book or Webb s Flora.(Technical Book)
For gardening, The garden expert books are good for general stuff and any RHS books The Ato Z or the encyclopedia of of plants and flowers, The readers digest can also be good. After that there are so many books specialising in Herbaceous plants, Grasses, Bamboos and Trees,

[tagwex]

I have had the rhs gardeners encyclopedia of plants and flowers for nigh on 20 years and it is well laid out and easy to use. It is my first book that I go to even though I have several others. Well thumbed through at this stage. But I digress, I haunt second hand book stores and regularly see that book available for a pittance. Cannot see that there would be that much difference between different editions.

[My Potatoes]

It depends on how much you want to spend really. The RHS A-Z seems to cost half the price it used to on Amazon. When I studied horticulture we used "Name That Plant" by Martin Page.