Gardening / Personal Gardens / Dirt Patches / Growing Plants

Personal Gardens / Dirt Patches

Personal Gardens / Dirt Patches

For Growing Crops:

Personal Garden Deeds may be purchased by a Gardener, you can page staff to place outside your custom house plot provided there is enough room to do so, there must be at least a 10x 11 clear, level surface for one to be placed. They may not be placed inside or outside a townhome. You may also place one on your custom house plot, will only be able to be placed on the bottom floor and the plot must be larger than the plot deed of 9x 10. See image below.

Alternatively you may place dirt patches on your custom plot or inside your townhome, these must be locked down and can also be purchased from Gardeners. See image below on what the dirt patches look like.

To grow crops you will need to use crop seeds, available from Gardeners or as drops of several monsters. See Image below.

To start your crop, stand where you want to plant the seed and double click the seed and it will be planted. Success on growing crops may depend on your level of Harvesting. If skill is too low you may get a weed instead of the crop you want. To remove a weed take an axe to it. If you have success in growing your crop you will soon see the plant start to grow. It will vary on the crop on how long it takes to grow, but does not take long to get started. See image below for available crops.

Once your crop has been started you may move them around with the housing tool. And there is no additional care needed for them to flourish. Once fully grown you may begin harvesting, this too will vary on your skill on how much you are able to harvest. To harvest just double click the plant until it tells you there is nothing here to harvest and yields will vary upon crop and skill.

Growing Plants

Growing Plants

Using these type of seeds is a non-skill based activity that any character can try. It allows you to grow many different types of decorative plants, some of which even produce valuable resources.

Though potions that can only be brewed using alchemy are required, these can be purchased from player vendors.

These types of seeds are available from Gardeners, drops from monsters or you can gather rare seeds by doing the Naturalist quest.

See image below.

Beginning

Plant Bowl

The first step towards the mastery of botany involves finding some seeds and a plant bowl. The bowl can be purchased from Provisioners and Gardeners and needs to be filled with dirt; there are three ways you can go about doing this.

You can locate a farmer's field (such as those that produce cotton or wheat) and use the bowl on the ground there. This is regular, non-fertile dirt.

Another way is to collect twenty units of fertile dirt to fill the bowl with. While it can take some time to collect, the use of this enhanced soil will speed the rate at which your plants are able to grow.

Finally, the easiest way is to purchase fertile dirt from Mages / Alchemists that sell reagents.

With the bowl filled, it must next be watered. Two applications from a Picture of Water, will be enough to take the dirt from "hard" to "soft". Be careful not to pour any more, or the dirt will become "squishy"!

The next step is to plant a seed in the bowl. When this is done, it's fully prepared: You can now lock it down in your house, or place it in your bank box or keep on your character.

Growth Checks

Every 24 hours - at the time you last maintained them - a plant will take a "growth check".

The check will fail unless it's been in a valid growing location (e.g. locked down in a house you own, your bank or on your character) for at least 24 hours. A check failed in this way means nothing happens - the plant will not change for better or worse.

Typically plants will advance one stage each growth check, though they will stay at the same level if they are unhealthy. Seeds planted in fertile dirt have a chance of advancing two stages in a single night. The current growth stage is written in the top left corner of the plant's display window, revealed by double clicking on it.

Plants begin at stage one. When they reach stage seven, their true form becomes revealed. They can then pollinate and then be pollinated by other plants.

They will not advance beyond stage nine, though at this stage some will start to produce seeds and other plant resources.

Plant Maintenance

Double clicking on a growing plant will reveal a display relating to the plants age and health. Ideally, your foliage will remain "vibrant" throughout its life time, but if you fail to maintain your plants they will drop in health with each growth check until they ultimately wither and die.

Each growth check can cause various ailments to affect your plant. These need to be dealt with prior to the next check in order to prevent them from actually harming it.

The five icons on the right hand side of the plant display reveal what needs to be done in order to keep your plants healthy. You may apply potions from bottles or potion kegs you are carrying in your pack by clicking their respective icons within the plant GUMP.

See image below.

Infestation

Occurs randomly. If there is a yellow cross next to this, apply one Greater Poison potion; if red, apply two.

Fungus

Occurs randomly. If there is a yellow cross next to this, apply one Greater Cure potion; if red, apply two.

Poison

Occurs due to excessive poison potion applications. If there is a yellow cross next to this, apply one Greater Heal (not Cure!) potion; if red, apply two.

Disease

Occurs due to excessive cure potion applications. If there is a yellow cross next to this, apply one Greater Heal potion; if red, apply two.

Also apply up to two Greater Heal potions if a plant's health display reads as anything less than "healthy". Greater Strength potions may optionally be applied to reduce the rate at which a plant is affected by problems.

Finally, take care to keep the soil "soft" by applying pitchers of water as need be. Depending on how many plants you wish to maintain at once, you might find the water trough house add-on to be invaluable.

Plant Breeding

When a plant reaches the seventh stage, it becomes capable of pollinating. Click the plant Reproduction icon ( ) in order to display the resource GUMP.

Clicking the Pollination ( ) icon will then give you a targeting cursor with which to apply pollen to another plant. Assuming that plant is also at the seventh stage it will become fertilized and capable of producing new seeds after the ninth stage of growth.

Plants may be used to pollinate themselves. Seeds grown by such plants will be titled according to the name of the parent. If a plant has not been pollinated by the time it reaches the ninth stage, it will automatically pollinate itself.

Plants grown from Mutant seeds cannot pollinate or be pollinated.

See image below.

Growing Plant Seeds/Resources

Certain plants are capable of producing more seeds, as well as other resources. They will produce one seed and resource for every growth check after reaching the ninth stage, to a maximum of eight each. Note that only a few plants produce resources, and some do not even produce seeds.

Seeds/resources are extracted by clicking the appropriate icons in the plant resource GUMP, accessed via the plant Reproductionicon ( ).

Seeds

Click to extract a seed from the plant. The amount of seeds available/remaining to be grown is displayed next to this icon.

Resources

Click to extract a resource from the plant. The amount of resources available/remaining to be grown is displayed next to this icon.

Once a plant has produced its maximum number of seeds and resources, there is no point in maintaining it further.

There are three types of resources one can acquire from certain breeds of plants. The types of resources are Green Thorns, Red Leaves and Orange Petals.

Decorative Plants

Once a plant reaches its ninth stage of growth, you may set it to "decorative" mode by clicking the icon ( )in the plant resource GUMP.

Once a plant is decorative, you may no longer bring up the display window, extract seeds/resources, or otherwise interact with it: On the other hand, it will no longer require maintenance. It becomes a simple item for display in your house, or perhaps for sale to other players.