My first tip is to start small. Pick a location you frequent often. A place where you want to know what lives there. Perhaps your garden, a local park, reserve or creek. I totally recommend your own garden as a starting point as this is so accessible. However your own garden will most likely have introduced plants species, so you need to be aware of this.
So my first tip, is pick a location and visit it. Don't even bring your ID book. Just walk around and look. On my property, I walked everyday for a month and just looked (that's my property in the photo). I focused my attention on the large trees first. Gums will probably be the tallest trees you can see. Once you understand the gums in the area, you will understand what the forest type is (wet or dry Eucalypt etc) and this will help you to identify more plants.
As each day passes you will start to pick out similar trees. I turned this into a game with my daughter. So I would stand beside a tree and she would find the closest one that looked just the same. Then she would stand beside one and I would have to find one just the same. This game would be easier at a local reserve than in your own backyard (if your backyard is small). Though if you have several trees the same, you could still try.
So my first tip is about becoming familiar. Don't worry about naming any of the trees. Start to expand your senses. Walk a similar track and look, look, look. These leaves are shiny green but these are dull green. This bark is smooth but this bark is really rough. This tree is very tall but this one is much smaller. Look, look, look and ask questions. The trees will become familiar to you and you will broaden your search patterns and be able to point out the ones which are similar.
So go on and try, I'd love to hear about it.
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