USA National Phenology Network

First identify the site(s) where the plant(s) you will observe are located, perhaps your front or back yard. Consider these guidelines in selecting your monitoring site(s):

Convenience: You will be visiting your site(s) regularly, so it should be convenient and accessible during the entire growing season.

Representative location: As much as is practical, the selected site(s) should be representative of the vegetation and conditions for your area. More...

Uniform habitat: The selected site(s) should be relatively uniform across the site. If you would like to monitor plants in two adjacent habitats, please document them as separate sites. For example, a clearing in forest should be documented as a separate site from the forest.

Appropriate size: A site should be no larger than 15 acres (6 hectares or 250 x 250 meters), a square with sides the length of 2 ½ football fields. A site can certainly be smaller than this, and larger properties can be divided into multiple sites. More...

Proper permission: If you do not own the property where the site is located, you must get permission from the landowner before marking any plants or reporting the site location information (such as latitude/longitude coordinates). More...

Choose one or more plant species to monitor from the USA-NPN plant list. If possible, choose a USA-NPN calibration species for monitoring in addition to any others you'd like to observe. More...

Make sure that you have correctly identified the plant species at your site before reporting your observations for that plant online. More...

At your site(s) select one or more individuals of each of your chosen plant species for monitoring. Choose plants that appear to be healthy, physically undamaged, and free of insect or pathogen infestations. For multiple individuals of the same species, try to select individuals that are not direct neighbors, but are still growing in a similar environment. More...

For annuals (which only survive one growing season) and biennials (which survive for two growing seasons), avoid choosing the first or the last seedling to emerge in the spring since they may not be representative of the larger population at your site. More...

You will want to somehow mark each individual so that the observations and measurements you make and record through time are always for the same individual plant. We recommend marking each individual plant with a unique label. For example, you could mark pieces of flagging tape with “red_maple_01”, “red_maple_02”, etc. and then tie them to each of the red maples you are observing. Possible label materials include flagging tape, popsicle sticks, string, aluminum tags, gardening stakes, and toothpicks. More...

Remember that if you do not own the property where your site is located, you must get permission from the landowner to mark any plants.

You will need the following items. You can download and print a field datasheet for each of your plants from the plants' profile page, or generate personalized datasheets for each of your plants from your My NPN Home page.

• Datasheets, clipboard, pencil
• Binoculars (optional, helpful for observing tall trees)
• Marking equipment for first trip

Check your selected plant's profile page to determine which phenophases you should be observing, and for instructions on how to recognize them. You are not required to follow all of the recommended phenophases for a species, but be sure to note which ones you are and are not following when you enter your observation data (see below).

Observe your plants as often as is possible, ideally at least once a week, but several times a week or even once a day is even better during the spring and fall when things are changing quickly. For each day that you observe a plant, record the date on your datasheet, and for each phenophase, record either:

• Yes (Y) – if you looked for signs and determined the phenophase is occurring
• No (N) – if you looked for signs and determined the phenophase is not occurring
• Unknown (?) – if you did not or forgot to look for signs of this phenophase

It is very important to record this information, even if nothing has changed since your last visit! Knowing when a plant is not in a given phenophase is just as important as knowing when one is. More...

If a phenophase begins and ends while you were not observing, make a note of it in the comments section. More...

If you are watching for a phenophase and it does not seem to be starting when you expect it would, continue to watch for it and record that it is not occurring. This could mean the phenophase is occurring later or not at all in a given year, and this could be very valuable information. More...

Once a phenophase has ended you should continue to look for signs of it and record whether or not it is occurring again. Sometimes phenophases will occur a second or third (or more) time in a season, whether because of rain, pests, or climate change. More...

As you collect data during the season, login to your My NPN account and enter the observation data you recorded. The sooner you enter your data, the more useful it will be for real-time phenology visualizations.

The value of phenology data is in observations from the same plants over many years, so please come back next season!