Another garden ID one

[kitschplease]

I have had a lot of help with roses, but am equally clueless about everything else in the garden! Any ideas what this one is?

It’s a hebe of some sort.

I would think a sort of Sedum

I vote for Hebe as well. But I'm jealous yours is flowering. I think mine is sulking because I keep having to cut it back do it doesn't completely cover our front path!

Hebe.

Hebe, it looks like it could be a baby marie hebe

I have an app on my phone called Picture This. Download it, open app and take a picture and it will identify your plant. Your photo is a bit blurred but I tried to identify it with this app from my iPad screen and it says the plant is Corsican Stonecrop, botanical name Sedum Dasyphyllum

Thanks all - it's a lovely plant and DCat's favourite place to squirrel into for shade.

I'm afraid that just shows why the apps are unreliable, as to the naked eye it's clearly a hebe!

I agree it's a hebe. It's too big to be the stonecrop, which is a very small ground cover plant that only grows to about 10cm.

Yep - hebe.
Also known as heebee jeebee!!!

Those apps are rubbish. Also they are usually worldwide, not UK based, so their range is too wide for gardeners here and you'll get all kinds of suggestions which miss the mark.

It's a hebe without a doubt.

Thanks! I've tried a few of the apps, but they don't seem to work for me (not least because of my blurry photography), so glad the MN mind can confirm!

Your photo is a bit blurred but I tried to identify it with this app from my iPad screen and it says the plant is Corsican Stonecrop, botanical name Sedum Dasyphyllum Which just goes to show why you shouldn't rely on apps in their current state

Especially if it included the capital D in dasyphyllum!

A recent study tested available apps and deduced they were right 50% of the time. The problem is, you use an app because you don't know what the plant is, and so you have no way of telling when it has got it wrong. Also - they aren't based on plant knowledge, merely on pattern recognition from photos (like a google image search) - and so, when they get it wrong, they get it very wrong - like here, where they've identified a bush as an unrelated creeping succulent plant.

All those plant ID apps come out with utter shit sometimes, and are so unreliable they are virtually worthless.

This is a prime example.

Oh what a shame, I was rather enjoying my plant app until you lot trashed it! 😆

In recent weeks I have been very alarmed by some of the dud plant identifications on MN (and on social media too). Too often, I'm goggling in disbelief while people say "that looks like blah" when it quite obviously doesn't. Mostly these plant IDs are a bit of fun but there's potential for huge harm where people can''t tell the difference between toxic and non-toxic plants. Do you think the plant apps are to blame here?

until you lot trashed it! Oh, the satisfaction of a job well done!

Ibiza Not entirely the plant apps. Beginners can make similar mistakes to plant apps. The plant apps are basically image recognition "this picture has the same layout of white and green pixels as a picture on the internet that was labelled Sedum dasyphyllum" and beginners can do the same. "This is a small purple flower, it must be a violet" despite the fact the flower shape is wrong, the leaf shape is wrong and it's flowering at the wrong time of year. Neither plant apps nor beginners have the knowledge to say "this is clearly in this family, so that immediately knocks out a lot of possibilities"

So are people "learning" things from plant apps and therefore giving wrong ids? Or with the growing distrust of "experts" are people becoming (in this case unjustifiably) confident of their own knowledge and more willing to state an identification when in earlier years they might have kept quiet or been less assured? Or is it that there are fewer people in the community who can set them on the right track? - I learned a lot of flower names from my mother, and this wasn't at all unusual, but I think it would be unusual today.

I have been alarmed in recent weeks - I'm on a facebook wildflower group which includes as members some of the best botanists in the UK, the people who write the text books, the people who interpret the DNA and determine the classifications. Yet every time someone says "can you help with an id", someone pops up and says "you need to get [their favourite plant app]".

You're right, it's got a lot worse in the last few weeks. Is it lockdown? Lots of people going out for walks to green spaces that they've never visited before, and for the first time noticing wild flowers, and grabbing their phone and looking for an app.

The trouble is that most people hazarding an id for a plant they don't really know, will say "I'm not sure but ..." and you know to treat the id with caution. But plant apps don't say "this is 100% definite" or "this is a possibility" and people armed with a plant app will pass on an id as if it's definite.

Mostly these plant IDs are a bit of fun but there's potential for huge harm where people can''t tell the difference between toxic and non-toxic plants. That's not just a recent problem. As part of research for a wild flower walk I was leading, I discovered that "eye bright" wasn't just used for Euphrasia (which was used in eye drops etc), in some parts of the country it is used for Linum catharticum - purging flax. That could have caused interesting problems!

hebes are lovely, but they can end up with a woody centre and all the foliage on one side.
It woudl be good to look up how to prune it (be careful, I think it is one of those that won't regrow from the woody part)

Oh no, it isn't a new thing. For years I've been (as I said) rolling my eyes at some of the stunningly wrong plant IDs on MN. It's one of the reasons I still loiter in the gardening section. But it does seem to be getting worse and some people aren't even tentative when they say "that looks like (whatever)" even though it very much doesn't. I generally try to be kind, but worst case scenario is that one day a poor MNer will feed their child something toxic because some misguided twit told them it was a redcurrant.

Rant over.

a poor MNer will feed their child something toxic because some misguided twit told them it was a redcurrant. I make a point of not telling people a fungus or a wild flower is edible. Maybe I'd better extend that to redcurrants

As the others have said, its definitely a hebe. My Baby Marie finished flowering weeks ago though. I'm East Mids.