Gardening Guide Updated

[Carl]

@Tigerskin I will look into this and try to clarify things somehow.

[Tigerskin]

Thanks @Carl, I'm intrigued in case I am doing something wrong.

[Carl]

@Tigerskin I think you are missing a step. Since plants only give a cutting from the base plant, you would need to then grow some of the ones you created by grafting (plant a harvested fruit) and take cutting from the 'pure' plants.

So you would take that dragonfruit, plant it, and graft a snapdragon to it. This will allow it to produce cowplant berries. That is the desired end result, to have dragonfruit, snapdragon, and cowplant berries growing on that plant along with the bonsai buds. You're right that you won't be able to take cutting from a cow plant. You should be able to take cutting from bonsai buds (not the bush you trim) after you graft strawberry and daisy together, then plant the resulting bud. As far as I remember, anyway. Been a while since I gardened.

I guess I should edit this within the introductory paragraph to point that out, but would like to hear from you that this fixes it for you.

[Tigerskin]

@Carl, I'm confused. When you plant the bonsai buds they grow into the bonsai shrub -  you cannot take a cutting from that?

I've just tested it again.

I haven't converted it into the decorative bonsai tree.

Edited to be more clear.

[Carl]

You're absolutely right. I just loaded that save and you can't take cutting from it. I think the author spent time thinking it out but didn't notice that. It is still a good plan but I will have to message her with this and see if she wants to change the plan at all.

I am sorry for confusing you on that, just didn't realize you can't take cutting from that plant. In theory then, could you add a daisy to that Dragon/Snapdragon/cowplant/strawberry plant in order to have the bonsai buds come from the strawberry and daisy combo? It means there are two daisies in the garden so it's not 100% perfect as intended but does yield all plants. I'm a little rusty on this, even though gardening was my favorite thing.

I'm going to try testing that now.

[Carl]

Ok yeah, you can't do that either. Thanks for pointing this out to me. I will have to make a note so no one else is confused by it.

I suppose what I would do, is keep the strawberry/daisy/bonsai bud bush and then not graft strawberry nor daisy anywhere else. It results in one more plant.

Such a perfect plan! I guess maybe it still is, given the game has limited it.

[Tigerskin]

Yeah I've kept a couple of plants, one with the bonsai buds on and one with the cowberry plant on.

I always graft to limit the number of plants as gardening is so time consuming - so I was glad to see the list.

Thanks for testing it for me 

[Tixxis]

Last time I looked there were no prices for the alien fruits from Sixam. The prices below are for perfect quality:

Fang Flower : $50
Glow Orb Berry: $100
Quill Fruit: $100

Note: Like UFO fruit, the value of these fruits increased whenever the loading screen was used.

[Playalot]

The glow orb plant seems to work slightly differently than other plants. A perfect glow orb plant seems to cycle through values, not as a 'trick' but simply seems to be what it does. It daily increases up to $1,300 or $1,400 a fruit and then if you do not harvest the fruit at this point in then cycles down in price each day until it goes back to its most basic perfect price... where it then stays. Once you harvest it... it obviously grows more fruit which will then increase each day and so on and so on. I don't think it's loading screen dependent as it the game I was playing I played over quite a few sim days without traveling or saving and quitting.
Can't be 100% sure so if anyone wants to test this...?

[Tixxis]

Can't be 100% sure so if anyone wants to test this...?

I left the glow orbs on the stalk for over 72 hours. No price fluctuations. I avoided a loading screen of any kind.
Maybe the plant needs to be harvested at least once before price fluctuations start?
I will test this a little further and include observations of a spliced carrot/glow orb plant.

[Carl]

@Tixxis thank you. I will grow some and record those values right now, in order to finish the table. Not having to go all the way to excellent with them saves me some time.

On the plants' values fluctuating, I know that with the gardening bug the values will drop at some point once they've been rising. They hit some value and the game decides it's too much, and your $500 blackberries become regular blackberries.

Edit: Annnd got them in!

[Tixxis]

That's nice, Carl. Thank you.

Playalot,
I have finished the rest of the test, but it was no good. I left the orbs well over 72 hours both on the stalk plant and the sliced plant. I checked every hour once they were fully in bloom, but I did not detect any price fluctuations. The gardener I used has gardening level 10 and the Super Green thumb award.
There is probably more to this. Something I didn't take into account, but I have no ideas at the moment.

[Playalot]

@Tixxis, it can't be a glitch as I've got two games where this happens. I can't remember if I harvested them before they started doing the 'price thing' or not. Both plants are pure orbs and not grafted with anything else.

[Tixxis]

@Tixxis, it can't be a glitch as I've got two games where this happens. I can't remember if I harvested them before they started doing the 'price thing' or not. Both plants are pure orbs and not grafted with anything else.

You are such an experienced gardener that the thought of a 'glitch' never occurred to me.
I worked with pure orbs as well as spliced plants, but it just didn't happen for me. As I said, I probably overlooked something vital.
Did you use special fertilizers?

[Carl]

I wonder if there could be something these do to trigger the usual gardening glitch (it is there for 100% of players as far as I am aware), but only in a different way that is unique to that plant.