Gardening and plant growing is a system that has evolved considerably since its introduction. The first thing we will look at in this page is the chosen Method of Growing your seeds. Further topics covered will be Types and Sources of Seeds | Reasons to Grow Plants | Care of Plants in Pots | Understanding the Plant Gump
Method of Growing
There are three main choices, they are:
- In pots – this method is the original design and requires that the plants be maintained by the gardener daily. This will be dealt with in detail later under the heading ‘Care of Plants in Pots’.
- In Garden Beds – Garden beds are purchased from Origin Store either as part of the ‘Rustic Theme Pack’ or as a pack of 3 beds. Planting in beds requires no daily maintenance. More information is provided on the page ‘Raised Garden Beds‘
- On the Island of Magincia – this method requires daily maintenance except when a gardening contract is in effect. More can be read of this method on the page ‘Magincia Planting‘
Types and Sources of Seeds
Basic seeds are obtained from Bog Things and their attendant Boglings. They spawn in four colors, these are red, blue, yellow and plain. These seeds produce the first generation breedable plants and can be cross pollinated to create further plant types and more colors. Colors are created in the same way as mixing paint, ie red + blue = purple, yellow + blue = green. Crossing two plants of the same color produces a bright version, ie red + red = bright red etc. Cross pollinating with a plain plant will always produce a plain result. The further generations of plants obtainable by cross pollination are listed on the Cross Pollination page. Some of these later plants produce useful resources.
Rare colored seeds are obtained by undertaking the quest ‘The Study of the Solen Hive‘. Plants grown from these seeds cannot be cross pollinated, do not produce seeds and can be any growable plant type. Black and White rare seeds are also sometimes produced as mutants from regular plant crossing.
Special Bonsai seeds can also be found on some creatures in the Tokuno Islands. There are four bonsai types, ‘Common’, ‘Uncommon’, ‘Rare’, ‘Exceptional’ and ‘Exotic’. They can not be cross pollinated and produce no seeds
Fragrant and Peculiar seeds can be found on a variety of creatures. Fragrant seeds grow into cocoa trees and produce seeds and cocoa pulp. There are 18 different types of plants grown from peculiar seeds, determined by which monster group the seed came from. Most of these plants are’decorative’ only, however poppies, cypress trees, sugar cane and flax each produce a resource, though no seeds. The more recent addition, vanilla, produces both resources and seeds. None of these plants can be cross pollinated.
There are two seeds in game which cannot be grown to produce plants. The first, seed of Renewal is produced by gardening and spawns randomly on any grown plant that normally produces seeds, they are a resource for the skill ‘imbuing’. The second, seed of the Silver Sapling is harvested from the tree in Stygian Abyss and is a resource for resurrecting characters.
Reasons to Grow Plants
The most obvious reason is to decorate your home, however there are a variety of useful resources that can be grown, also the plants, once all seeds and resources have been harvested, can be cut with clippers to produce clippings to make color stains, reeds to make baskets, or in some cases, decorative topiaries. Currently available resources are:
- Red Leaf – Gathered from Bright Red Elephant Ear Plants, Bright Red Ponytail Palms and Bright Red Century Plants. Red Leaves allow you to seal ink in a book so that the content of the book cannot be edited ever again.
- Orange Petals – Gathered from Bright Orange Poppies, Bright Orange Bulrushes and Bright Orange Pampas Grass. Eating Orange Petals will make you resistant to poison (up to ‘greater level’) for 5 minutes.
- Green Thorn – Gathered from Bright Green Barrel Cacti and Bright Green Snake Plants. Planting a green thorn will give various results, depending on the type of soil the thorn is planted in.
- Sand – Access to Solen Hive secret area
- Dirt – Small spawn of all kinds of reagents around the dirt patch. One green thorn can spawn up to 100 reagents.
- Farmer’s Field – Vorpal Bunny (loot – colored eggs)
- Snow, Ice – Giant Ice Worm (Tameable)
- Swamps – Whipping Vine (loot – decorative vines)
- Cocoa Pulp – Gathered from Cocoa trees grown from fragrant seeds, used by cooks to produce chocolate and hot cocoa
- Poppy Dust – Gathered from Poppies grown from peculiar seeds. Each cloud of dust will identify 8 peculiar seeds, each poppy plant will produce 8 dusts clouds (ie 64 total identifying charges per plant)
- Bale of Cotton – Gathered from Flax plants grown from peculiar seeds, can be spun into spools of cotton.
- Sack of Sugar – Gathered from Sugar Cane grown from peculiar seeds, used by cooks to produce chocolate and hot cocoa.
- Bark Fragment- Gathered from both ‘plain’ and ‘mossy’ varieties of Cypress Tree grown from peculiar seeds, used by cooks to produce wood pulp, in turn used by scribes to make blank scrolls or scroll binders.
- Vanilla – Gathered from Vanilla plants grown from peculiar seeds, used by cooks to produce chocolate
- Seed of Renewal – gathered randomly from any seed producing plant, used by imbuers to imbue hit point, stamina or mana regeneration properties
Care of Plants in Pots
Plant pots are bought from the provisioner, empty of course. First step is to fill the pot with soil – find a bare patch of earth, the side a road is usually good. Then you’ll need to soften it, with a jug of water in your pack, double click the bowl to open the plant gump then click the water jug icon twice. You can now plant your seed by double clicking it and targeting the pot, but when and how will it grow?
- Plants in pots locked down in a house will undergo a growth check each day at server up. If it is not tended it will begin to sicken.
- Plants in a character’s back pack (or in the pack of a giant beetle on which the character is mounted) will grow every 23 hours – provided the character is logged in. If the character isn’t logged in the growth check will happen next time the character is in game.
- Plants in a secure container or bank box will not undergo growth checks, will not grow nor sicken.
Understanding the Plant Gump
A small gump, but a lot of information, most of this information is only needed for growing in pots, watering and treating with potions is not needed when growing in a garden bed.
First page
Top left, the plant’s maturation stage, days 1 – 9. At day 7 the plant is mature and can be pollinated, at day 9 it will self-pollinate if no pollination has been done by the player and the count will stop. The plant can now be removed and set decorative or left to produce seeds and resources if it has any.
Top right – the plant’s growth condition. A red exclamation mark, the plant is in an invalid position. Red minus, the plant didn’t grow because it is not healthy. Yellow minus, the growth check has not yet happened. Blue plus, the plant grew successfully. Green plus, the plant underwent accelerated growth due to being planted in fertile dirt.
first left icon – clicking this icon moves the gump to the second page, reproduction
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first right icon – water jug. The symbol at the side tells you what water the plant needs – click the jug icon once for a yellow minus, twice for a red minus. A plus icon means the plant has been watered, a red plus the plant is overwatered. No icon, the plant is in a garden bed, no watering needed.
Second left icon – insect infestation. A yellow + sign means the plant has a small infestation. A red + sign indicates a severe infestation. The remedy is listed opposite – green potions. Specifically greater poison potions, with the relevant potion in your back pack click the green bottle icon once for yellow, twice for red.
Third left icon – fungus infection. Again, yellow for minor red for major and the solution is shown opposite, in this case greater cure potions.
Fourth left icon – poisoned. An accidental over application of greater poison potions, remedy the situation with greater heal potions in the same way as for insects and fungi.
Fifth left icon – diseased. An accidental over application of cure potions causes this, remedy the situation with greater heal potions.
Fifth right icon – Greater Strength potions, if applied daily, can raise your plant’s resistance against insects and fungi. One bottle daily.
Bottom Right Corner – this icon is dependent upon whether the plant is in a pot or in earth (either garden bed or Magincia). Clicking on this brings up the options to either empty the bowl or abandon the plot. If the plant is in the seed or sapling stage, this will result the seed placed in your backpack, plus the bowl if it was in one. If the plant had grown beyond the sapling phase the plant will be destroyed, the bowl, if there is one, will be placed in your backpack.
Second Page
Top left – this icon returns you to the first page
Second left – displays the pollination state, a minus symbol shows the plant is not yet producing pollen. A red X, this plant does not produce pollen and cannot be cross pollinated, a red exclamation mark, pollen is available, a green plus, this plant has been pollinated. This icon is not clickable, use the icon below to pollinate. Clicking it will give a targeting cursor, click this on another plant to cross pollinate.
Second center – displays the resource state, a red X means this plant gives no resources. 0/8 means of the 8 resources the plant can produce none have yet been generated. 1/8 would mean the plant had produced one resource which was still on the plant 0/7 would mean the plant had produced 1 resource which had been harvested. When this icon shows 0/0 the plant’s resources have all been harvested. It will produce no more. To harvest the resources click the icon below.
Second center – displays the seed state, a red X means this plant gives no seeds. 0/8 means of the 8 seeds the plant can produce none have yet been generated. 1/8 would mean the plant had produced one seed which was still on the plant 0/7 would mean the plant had produced 1 seed which had been harvested. When this icon shows 0/0 the plant’s seeds have all been harvested. It will produce no more. To harvest the resources click the icon below
Top right – this icon does not appear until the plant is fully mature and past the 9th day. Clicking on this gives the option to set the plant ‘decorative’, it will be placed in your backpack and will need no further tending.