Plant Gardening

Plant gardening lets you grow decorative plants in bowls of dirt. With daily care a seed grows into a full plant. You can cross-pollinate plants to breed new colors and types, collect seeds to plant again, and harvest a few rare plant resources.

What you need

	Item	Where to get it
	Plant bowl	Sold by provisioners (base price 2 gold).
	Dirt	Use the empty bowl on a patch of dirt, or on 40 pieces of fertile dirt in your backpack.
	Seeds	Carried by Boglings (one seed) and Bog Things (two seeds). Your own plants also make seeds.
	Water	Any pourable drink container filled with water, such as a pitcher of water.
	Potions	Greater potions made with Alchemy (see Potions).

Fertile dirt is carried by Whipping Vines, Earth Elementals and Ant Lions. A bowl filled with fertile dirt gives your plant a 10% chance each day to grow two stages instead of one, during its early stages (up to stage 5). Anything other than a dirt patch or fertile dirt won't fill the bowl.

Planting

1. Double-click the empty plant bowl in your backpack and target a patch of dirt (or your fertile dirt).
2. Soften the dirt: pour water into the bowl until the dirt is at least soft. Seeds can't go into hard dirt.
3. Double-click the seed and target the bowl of dirt.

Wild seeds don't tell you what they will grow into until the plant shows itself. They're always a Campion Flower, Fern or Tribarrel Cactus, in plain, red, blue or yellow. Seeds gathered from your own plants show their type and color.

Where a plant can grow

A plant only grows when it is in your backpack, in your bank box, or locked down in a house. Anywhere else it simply waits and doesn't grow. You can only open a plant's care window when it is in one of these places.

The plant window

Double-click a plant to open its care window. It shows the plant's stage, its health, how wet the soil is, any problems it has, and how many doses of each potion it currently holds. From the window you can:

• Water the plant (or drag a water container onto it).
• Add a potion from your backpack (or drag a potion or potion keg onto it).
• Empty the bowl to get your plant bowl back. If the plant is still a seed or sapling, you also get the seed back. Anything further along is lost.
• Open the reproduction window to pollinate the plant, gather seeds and resources, or set it to decorative mode.

Growth

A plant is checked about once a day (every 23 hours). Plants locked down in a house are checked by the world itself. Plants in your backpack or bank are checked when you log in.

Each check, in order:

1. Potions in the soil fight the plant's problems (see Potions).
2. Problems and bad watering damage the plant.
3. If the plant is at least healthy, it grows one stage (sometimes two with fertile dirt). A wilted or dying plant does not grow.
4. New problems may appear, and the soil dries out a little.

Stages	Looks like
1–3	Seed and sapling: the bowl still looks like plain dirt
4–6	Growing plant
7–9	Full-grown plant, in its real shape and color

A well-kept plant reaches full growth at stage 9 after about nine days. From there it keeps producing seeds and resources (see Seeds and resources).

Health

A plant has hit points that go up as it grows (12 at stage 1, up to 28 at stage 9). Its health is shown as:

Health	Hit points
Vibrant	Full
Healthy	66% or more
Wilted	33% to 65%
Dying	Under 33%

A plant with no problems and correct water regains 2 hit points a day, or 7 per dose of greater heal in the soil. If its hit points reach zero it dies. A young plant (stage 1–6) dies back to a plain bowl of dirt, and a full-grown plant turns into a bowl of dead twigs .

Water

The soil goes from hard (dry or very dry) to soft, squishy and sappy wet. Soft is the right level. Every check the soil dries by one level (soggy soil always does, and soil at soft or drier usually does).

• Each level too dry or too wet costs the plant 3–6 hit points per check.
• Wet soil also raises the chance of pests and fungus by 10% per level above soft. Dry soil lowers it by the same amount.

Tip: water it back to soft each day. Soil one level wetter than soft survives an extra day without water, but it costs some health and invites pests.

Problems

Each problem has two levels (light and heavy). Every level does 3–6 damage per check.

Problem	How it appears	Cure
Infestation (insects)	30% chance per check. +10% for flowering plants, +10% for bright colors, ±10% per water level above or below soft.	Greater poison
Fungus	15% chance per check, ±10% per water level above or below soft.	Greater cure
Poison	Leftover poison potion that didn't have pests to kill.	Greater heal
Disease	Leftover cure potion that didn't have fungus to kill.	Greater heal

The flowering plants are Campion Flowers, Poppies, Snowdrops, Bulrushes, Lilies, Pampas Grass and Rushes.

Potions

A plant holds up to 2 doses of each potion. Only greater potions work (a deadly poison counts as a greater poison). Lesser and regular potions are too weak, and other potions can't be used at all.

	Potion	Effect at the next check
	Greater poison	Each dose kills one level of infestation. Doses left over poison the plant.
	Greater cure	Each dose cures one level of fungus. Doses left over make the plant diseased.
	Greater heal	Each dose cures one level of poison or disease. If no problems remain, the doses left over restore 7 hit points each. Unused heal potions are used up after the check.
	Greater strength	Each dose cuts the chance of new pests and fungus by 7.5% for that check. Used up after the check.

Tip: only add poison or cure when you can see pests or fungus, because extra doses hurt the plant. Strength is safe to use at any time.

Cross-pollination

A healthy or vibrant plant at stage 7 or higher can be cross-pollinated. Open its reproduction window, choose Gather pollen, then target another healthy plant at stage 7 or higher that hasn't been pollinated yet, within 3 tiles. The plant you target carries the new seeds. If you target the same plant, it pollinates itself. A plant that reaches stage 9 without being pollinated pollinates itself automatically.

Seed color

Parents	Seed color	Example
Either parent is plain	Plain	Plain + Red → Plain
The same color	The bright version of that color	Red + Red → Bright Red
Two different primary colors	The color they mix to	Red + Blue → Purple
A primary and a mixed color	The primary color	Red + Green → Red
Two different mixed colors	The color they share	Purple + Green → Blue

Primary colors are red, blue and yellow, and mixed colors are purple (red + blue), green (blue + yellow) and orange (red + yellow). Apart from the same-color rule, brightness isn't passed on, so Bright Red + Blue gives Purple.

Every crossing: find one parent's color on the left and the other parent's color along the top. Each cell shows the seed the cross makes; hover over any seed to see its color (the order of the parents doesn't matter). Every cross still has the 1% mutation chance described below.

A ↓ B →

All seed colors:

Plain	Primary	Mixed	Bright	Mutation
Plain	Red Blue Yellow	Purple Green Orange	Bright Red Bright Blue Bright Yellow Bright Purple Bright Green Bright Orange	Black White

Mutations: every cross has a 1% chance to make a black or white seed instead. Mutated plants are rare showpieces. They can't be cross-pollinated, and they make no seeds and no resources.

Seed type

Plant types sit in a fixed order. Crossing two types gives the type halfway between them (rounded toward the top of the list). Crossing two neighbors gives one of the two at random.

#	Type	#	Type
0	Campion Flowers	9	Ponytail Palm
1	Poppies	10	Small Palm
2	Snowdrops	11	Century Plant
3	Bulrushes	12	Water Plant
4	Lilies	13	Snake Plant
5	Pampas Grass	14	Prickly Pear Cactus
6	Rushes	15	Barrel Cactus
7	Elephant Ear Plant	16	Tribarrel Cactus
8	Fern

For example, Campion Flowers (0) + Fern (8) → Lilies (4), and Fern (8) + Tribarrel Cactus (16) → Water Plant (12).

Every type crossing: find one parent's type on the left and the other parent's type along the top. Each cell shows the plant the seed grows into; hover over any plant to see its name. Where two plants are shown, the seed is one of them at random.

A ↓ B →

Plants that can't be crossed: only the 17 plants above can be cross-pollinated. Rarer plants, such as bonsai trees and other unusual plants grown from seeds found on creatures, can't be cross-pollinated, and neither can black or white plants. Ordinary seeds found on creatures always grow into Campion Flowers, Fern or Tribarrel Cactus, so most other types have to be bred.

Seeds and resources

Once a plant is at stage 9, each daily check while it stays healthy adds:

• 1 seed, with the type and color decided at pollination, up to 8 in total.
• 1 resource, if its type and color make one, up to 8 in total.

Collect them from the reproduction window with Gather seeds and Gather resources. Mutated plants make neither.

	Resource	Grown from	Use
	Red leaves	Bright Red Elephant Ear Plant, Ponytail Palm or Century Plant	Seals the ink in a book you wrote, so the pages can't be changed.
	Orange petals	Bright Orange Poppies, Bulrushes or Pampas Grass	Eat one, and for 5 minutes poisons weaker than deadly are shaken off.
	Green thorns	Bright Green Snake Plant or Barrel Cactus	Push one into dirt, furrows, swamp, snow or sand and something strange happens, depending on the ground.

Decorative mode

At stage 9 you can choose Set to decorative in the reproduction window. The plant is pruned. It never needs water or potions again and can't die, but it stops growing and won't make any more seeds or resources. You can't undo this, so gather everything first.

Tips

• Check your plants once a day and water them back to soft.
• Keep a few greater poison, cure, heal and strength potions nearby, and treat only the problems you actually see.
• Bright colors and flowering plants attract more pests, so give them extra strength potions.
• Use fertile dirt to save a few days.
• Plants in your backpack or bank only grow when you log in, so lock your garden down in a house if you're often away.
• To breed a bright color, cross two plants of the same color. To breed a bright resource plant, first breed the right type, then pair two plants of the matching color.