The Sims 4 Gardening

Plant List, Fertilizer, and Grafting Plants

Gardening allows you to grow and harvest Plants

This guide covers Gardening from the perspective of a new player and moves on to more advanced topics such as perfect plants, grafting, and fertilizer. We do talk about gardening overhaul grafting and changes to the way you acquire plants via buy mode.

How to: Gardening Cheats

Press Control + Shift + C then type testingcheats on and press enter. You can now set your skill level with stats.set_skill_level major_gardening x (fill in 1-10) - we also have a full listing of Skill Cheats and a master list of Cheats in The Sims 4

About the Gardening Overhaul

With the Sims 4 Seasons release, all players received a free patch that overhauls the Gardening Skill. Plants no longer need to be watered as often, and at the same time there is an area of effect to watering and weeding. Plants up to 1 full square away (visible in build mode) will receive water when the Sim completes the animation. This results in your Sim doing about 10% the usual amount of watering. Additionally, evolve is no longer an animation, and Sims will not need to do it as often as plant quality levels have been cut from 10 to 5. You can also now sell plants without using the inventory. Grafting has also changed . Rares spawn.. rarely, about 1% spawn rate - so they are not broken, just poorly tuned.

Gardening Overview

The Sims 4's Gardening Skill offers you a means of growing plants to make money or make your own ingredients for meals, boosting their quality while pursuing completion of the Plants Collection. You can also use produce as bait. This Guide to Gardening will teach you about fertilizer, evolving plants, quality levels, cuttings and grafts, and how you can grow a big garden at home while still giving your Sims an active life.

If you like, you can jump to the Plant List. If you want info only on grafting combinations, head to the Grafting & Take Cutting Guide. See also the Beekeeping Guide if you have The Sims 4 Seasons Expansion Pack.

Good Traits & Aspirations for Gardeners



The Loves Outdoors Trait will give your Sim a happiness boost when they're outside, which will help keep mood positive and synergize with the next:

will give your Sim a happiness boost when they're outside, which will help keep mood positive and synergize with the next: Genius Trait - helps Sims get Focused - this Emotion is very helpful when Gardening and can help you gain skill faster, as demonstrated by the Research Gardening Interaction on the Computer.

- helps Sims get Focused - this Emotion is very helpful when Gardening and can help you gain skill faster, as demonstrated by the Research Gardening Interaction on the Computer. ???? - all kinds of other traits could work for Gardening, but maybe save your third slot for a little personality!

- all kinds of other traits could work for Gardening, but maybe save your third slot for a little personality! Freelance Botanist Aspiration - This is a natural choice for an Aspiration, since you can gain loads of Satisfaction for the purchase of Rewards by completing the objectives of this Aspiration. The Collector Trait that comes with it doesn't do much to help with collecting plants, but can help you to polish off other collections. You could start with something more useful, then switch to this in-game.

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You can Graft to produce a Death Flower Plant

Starting Gardening & Skill Level Unlocks

The Four basic skills of Gardening are Plant, Water, Weed, and Harvest. All these are self-explanatory, but necessary to help your plants to grow. These are the skills you get at the beginning, and starting is a simple matter of buying seeds or harvesting plants from the wild. You may also read Gardening skill books to raise your level. As you gain levels in Gardening, you'll unlock new abilities:

Level 2 - Research Gardening at Computer (Web > Research Gardening). Do this to get Focused, which will help you gain more Gardening Experience.

- Research Gardening at Computer (Web > Research Gardening). Do this to get Focused, which will help you gain more Gardening Experience. Level 3 - Your Gardener may now Fertilize Plants. This will help them to Evolve faster.

- Your Gardener may now Fertilize Plants. This will help them to Evolve faster. Level 4 - Seasonal Fall and Spring plants seed packets unlock. Also Sims may now talk to plants. This will allow you to talk to Plants to fill your Sim's Social Need, while also granting Gardening Skill experience!

- Seasonal Fall and Spring plants seed packets unlock. Also Sims may now talk to plants. This will allow you to talk to Plants to fill your Sim's Social Need, while also granting Gardening Skill experience! Level 5 - Seasonal Winter and Summer plants seed packets unlock. Take Cutting and Graft abilities unlock, which allow you to get otherwise unattainable plants.

- Seasonal Winter and Summer plants seed packets unlock. Take Cutting and Graft abilities unlock, which allow you to get otherwise unattainable plants. Level 6 - The area of effect of weeding is increased to include nearby plants. Other Sims may Compliment your Garden.

- The area of effect of weeding is increased to include nearby plants. Other Sims may Compliment your Garden. Level 7 - Farmer and Uncommon seed packets available for purchase. Sims unlock the Tend Garden ability, allowing them to Water and Weed the Garden by clicking a single plant. This is a big bonus, as tending many plants and finding what ones need watered can be a chore. You still need to choose when to harvest and fertilize, however.

- Farmer and Uncommon seed packets available for purchase. Sims unlock the Tend Garden ability, allowing them to Water and Weed the Garden by clicking a single plant. This is a big bonus, as tending many plants and finding what ones need watered can be a chore. You still need to choose when to harvest and fertilize, however. Level 8 - Super Sell ability unlocks, allowing you to sell from many plants at once to make money quickly. Sims get the ability to spend $50 to re-grow a Bonsai Tree in order to re-shape it.

- Super Sell ability unlocks, allowing you to sell from many plants at once to make money quickly. Sims get the ability to spend $50 to re-grow a Bonsai Tree in order to re-shape it. Level 9 - More efficient gardening interactions - Sims water plants and weed faster.

- More efficient gardening interactions - Sims water plants and weed faster. Level 10 - Can purchase rare seed packets for $1,000 each. It's very random, but you may get plants for your collection that you don't yet have. Buying a number of them is wise.

Buy Seeds from the computer or a Garden Pot to get started

Buying Seeds

Seeds can be purchased a few ways. With the most recent patch they are found in outdoor activities via buy mode. You can also find them on the Computer (under the Order Menu) or by clicking on Gardening Pots. These are found in Build Mode, Objects by Function > Hobbies & Skills > Miscellaneous. Garden Pots cost $50 while holding only one plant, while Garden Planter Boxes cost $200 and hold either 4 plants or one tree. These aren't necessary for your budding Gardener, as you are able to drag plants to the ground to plant them on your lot. However, both forms of these planters will let you grow plants indoors.

When you Order Seeds, you get to choose from many types of packets (especially with Seasons installed). Each will give you a variety of plants of that type. By default, you're able to choose from Starter Flowers, Fruits, Herbs, or Vegetables. These will give you random common items from each category, so buying more can increase the diversity of your yield.

Later, you unlock the ability to purchase uncommon and rares. This can save you time gathering them, though the old ways of collecting these are still cost-efficient. However, once you have a big garden you should be bringing in large amounts so collecting all the gardening plants is now much more trivial.

Create a line of Seeds and your Sim will Plant them all

Planting

Drag fruits, vegetables, herbs, or flowers from your inventory to the ground or a gardening pot/planter box. Lay it out the way you want, as many plants as you want, then select one and choose Plant. Your Sim will go about planting all of the seeds, which you can then water and gain loads of experience doing so. Later, they'll grow weeds so look out for that by clicking plants here and there. Find one with weeds and the Sim will take care of all Weeds, same with Watering. Keep taking care of your garden and plants will eventually be able to evolve to a higher quality level.

Eating Produce

Raw produce may be eaten directly from your Sim's inventory as of the Patch that came with the free patch accompanying the Outdoor Retreat Game Pack. That's great news for all players, regardless of whether they own the game pack. Eating Perfect plants may give your Sim a +3 Happy moodlet for 4h, so it's very much worth keeping some plants on you for a quick bite to eat and a pick me up in terms of mood. This can help your Sim to become Very Focused for their Gardening, further boosting Skill gains, even when you eat a 'Very Nice' or other medium-quality Plant.

Plant "Mood"

Plants with weeds around them or who go without water a while will begin to degrade and cease growth. If it drops too low too long, the plant will die. Keeping your plants in a good 'mood' will allow you to evolve them. There is a certain time a plant must be happy, reduced by fertilizer, before it can evolve.

Evolving a Plant raises its Quality Level

Evolving Plants

After taking good care of your plants for a few days, you'll start to see them sparkle. This is when the Evolve option comes up. Evolving a plant will result in higher-quality produce from that plant in the future. It will go up one level when you select Evolve, resulting in higher value harvestables that can be replanted or sold.

There is no point waiting to harvest until after you've evolved a plant. The harvestables' quality will be based on where the plant was when they grew. It's better to harvest them to get ready for the next evolution, so you can start getting profitable Superb-quality Plants.

Harvested Plants can be sold through the Sim's Inventory

Click and Drag the Plant to the Simoleon icon.

Taking Care of your Garden: Tending Garden and Harvest Yields

Plants operate on a schedule such that they all need water at the same time of day with the most recent Sims 4 patches. At 6am, the game checks if the plant has been watered recently and if it's time for another drink, or if it should spawn weeds. With The Sims 4 Seasons, rain may water your garden for you. A plant will only grow unhappy if it is neglected for a time. Plants will gradually grow up to their maximum of 6 harvestables (dependent upon plant type). This is the entire harvest for the day, so you should take them before the next morning to ensure more can spawn. Keep an eye on fertilizing, however, and try to keep that effect active on your favorite plants, so they can evolve quickly.

Spraying for Bugs

In the base game, bugs may infest your garden and they can wreak havoc on plants, killing them much faster than neglect. With the Seasons Expansion bug infestations are more common in springtime. You can spray for bugs but must keep an eye out for insects in your garden. A visual inspection should be done every day or two. You can see them quite easily from a medium distance as there will be a black swarm flying around the afflicted plant.

Fish make excellent Fertilizers.

Fertilizing Plants (Gardening Skill Level 3)

Other plants can be used as Fertilizer, but the best Fertilizers are Fish. The heavier the catch, the better a fertilizer it is - although there is also a hidden modifier on each fish that gives it a bonus. See the Fertilizer Guide for more info. The Sims 4's Fishing Skill works very well with Gardening. Plants that are Fertilized will not grow faster necessarily, but jump in quality faster. Getting to Perfect Quality Plants quickly means using Fertilize as often as it is available. Fertilize has around a 3-4 day cooldown.

Beekeeping in Seasons greatly increases the rate your plants are fertilized. Having a bee box within 5 squares of a plant will grant it a passive boost that stacks with regular fertilizer. I highly recommend looking into this if you'd like to make a perfect plant collection. What is more, you get honey for your efforts which can help make your Sims happy, save them from heat death, and sells for good money.

Plant Quality

Plants come in the following quality levels: Normal, Nice, Excellent, Magnificent, and Perfect.

Sims can prune Bonsai Trees to gain Gardening experience

Bonsai Trees

Bonsai Trees are decor that regrow but allow for a continual source of Gardening experience. However, talking to plants or reading about Gardening is a better means of gaining skill experience. You can trim them into multiple designs once you've gained some levels. These may serve as unique indoor decorations. You can change the color of the stand by clicking on it.

One of many Pictures you can get from taking Microscope Samples from Plants

Collect Microscope Sample

You can make money with Gardening another way if you're willing to invest in a Microscope (which is massive and costs $1630). Clicking a Plant and selecting to take a Microscope Sample will give you the ability to analyze it with the Microscope. This often yields a painting that can be worth hundreds of Simoleons or work as decor for a geek's paradise. This will, in turn, raise your Sim's Logic Skill.

Take Cutting lets you Graft Plants at Home

Take Cutting Ability (Gardening Level 5)

Plants must have grown a bit to use this ability. Using it two times in a row can kill a plant, resulting in a fee to revive it, else you dispose of the dead plant. Cuttings are used with the Graft ability, which is unlocked once you have some Plant Cuttings in your inventory. These all go into one stack. If you try to Take Cutting from a plant that has many others grafted on it, the original is the cutting you will get (the first on the list is the original plant type).

A Spliced Plant produces multiple Fruits, Flowers, Etc.

Graft Ability - Combine Plants (Level 5)

See the table below for special grafting combos to unlock plants you haven't yet found. This will start a plant over at its same level of quality, but adding the ability to also grow the plant whose cutting you grafted onto it. You can use this option a number of times on a single plant to make it give you a mixture of produce. The plant must grow a bit again before the Graft option will reappear. It is important to note that rares and uncommons now have a small chance of spawning when you've done the correct grafting combo. This is currently an intended design and not a bug. For any given harvestable you have a 500 weight for common, 100 for uncommon, and 1 for rare. This means 1 out of every 600 harvestables will be a rare.

Grafting is a good ability that allows you to minimize the work your Sim needs to maintain your garden, allowing you to eliminate some plants if you like. If you're going for maximum profit, you'd likely be better off having high-price plants that are NOT grafted in your garden, while grafting plants to condense the size of your garden and simultaneously cut back on the amount of fertilizing and garden tending you need to do. Grafting may also be used to get plants out of season. Use an all-weather plant like Sage and graft another common/uncommon to it to get that year-round. The primary means of getting masses of rares is going to be seasonal due to the weightings above.

Cow Plants can be acquired from Grafting Snapdragon with Dragonfruit

The Grafting option is very good for busy Sims that like to cook meals with good ingredients. However, remember that you get only 8-10 harvestables out of a plant and grafting too many to one plant will result in a mixture - 1 of a few of them, 2 of another, and maybe 0 of another kind on a particular harvest. It's totally random and doesn't really increase your yields. Best use of grafting is to do 2-3 type of plants, maximum, so you're sure to pick up a few of each when you harvest. Also note that harvesting right away will yield you few fruit, while waiting to harvest a grafted plant several hours after it first shows fruit (like normal plants) will give it time to make a larger variety of produce, and thus a better yield.

Mushrooms are the main type that can't be cut/grafted. They tend to grow faster than other plants, so this may be part of the reason. Trees grow more slowly so they are not great picks for grafting other plants to. Graft your slow-growing plants onto faster growing types using the Plant List below.

Wild Plants & Growth

In order to find Uncommon and Rare plants that do not come from seed packets and neighborhood gardens, you must look for plants in the Wild. Below, I've listed where I found plants but we have a much more thorough plant locations guide that can help you to find plants. Plants are not always harvestable, as they are not ready. Know that plants only grow in the neighborhood your active Sim is visiting . So if you want one to grow in another area, you need to hang out there a while. Plants grow fairly fast, so find a way to spend some time in that area while you wait for them to grow - make some friends, collect, and fish for fertilizer.

The Green Thumb Achievement

Sometimes they aren't even ready for you to Take Cutting. The trick is to stay in the area long enough for them to grow a tad (Plants grow fast in TS4) so you can take a cutting, then graft it onto one of your own plants. Your Plant will then produce that type of fruit/vegetable and allow you to plant one once that type has been harvested. I have never seen seeds on the ground in this game - it's all about finding plants in the wild and combining with existing plants to get the fruit you need to put in the ground to make your own. You will sometimes find wild plants harvestable, it's just not as efficient to collect them that way given they will usually start at normal quality and you'd be better off skipping all that evolving.

Tomato is found near Slipshod Mesquite in Oasis Springs

Making Perfect Plants Faster

Keep the plants you start with, and gradually evolve them by taking care of them and clicking Evolve each time it comes available. It's easier to see sparkles on game speed 2/3. When you later find a rare plant in the wild and take a sample, then graft it to your high-quality plant, you'll get a high-quality result and be able to plant it. This will let you skip leveling a plant at normal quality (assuming you harvest it in the wild) and is the fastest way to get a Perfect Blackberry bush or Dragonfruit.

Freelance Botanist is a Gardening Aspiration

Making a Death Flower

You need to do the following Grafts in order to make a Death Flower:

Graft Cherry to Apple to make Pomegranate

Graft Lily to Snapdragon to make Orchid

Graft Pomegranate to Orchid to make Death Flowers

Harvest the Death Flowers, Plant one, and enjoy unlimited Death Flowers, which can be exchanged to the reaper to avoid death!

You can get locations for the listed plants below.

Grafting for Efficiency

Charlottecupcake wrote in to me to tell me she'd made a guide to make a garden with one of each plant type that is also efficient. She optimizes this by grafting slow-growing plants onto fast ones, so that one of each is present for consumption by Sims or completing the Gardening collection. I've zipped up the PDF guide to combining plants that she wrote, and you may download it here. Inside you will see the plants to combine with, and how many cuttings you'll need to follow her plan. Big thanks to her for sharing this with the community. It is updated for Get to Work's alien plants.

Note: you cannot take cutting of Bonsai Buds, so this means that you can't graft that onto the #3 plant with Dragonfruit and Cow Berry. Contrary to the plan, you should keep the plant with Strawberry, Daisy, and Bonsai Buds to maintain the efficient nature. Because of this issue, it's one more plant but is also a minor problem. Just don't graft strawberry on to anything else except when making the dragonfruit by combining strawberry with snapdragon, and Daisy doesn't need to go on plant #2.

Seasons Specific

Growth Time and In-Season

Plants will not grow when out of season unless the next season is close. Trees seem to get more time to grow before in-season, with Apple trees growing in spring but not in season until Fall. While out of season, plants do not evolve and you cannot fertilize them. They'll lie dormant and wait for their optimal growth time. They do survive and retain all levels you've gained.

These changes make it a bit more challenging in terms of planning a garden that will create produce in the current season. If you select only starter packets and plant them all in Spring, you might only end up with one or two plants. Therefore some things are a waste of time depending on the time of year, and it may be good to break down the planting process and only grow plants that are in season or will be soon. While the plant list below has what plants are in season when, I will make a list of plants broken down by season and list them here later.

Fertilizer Strengths

Freelance Botanist is a Gardening Aspiration

Although fertilizer is talked about above, I've made a video/text guide to fertilizer in The Sims 4. On the Fertilizer Strength Guide, you'll learn how much strength each fish has to offer when used as a fertilizer, and some other information about how it works (freshness, weight, and fish fertilizer modifier all contribute). Plants can also be used as fertilizer as stated before. There are three ranks of fertilizer strength - high, med, and low. All plants other than growfruit (high) are either medium or low. Flowers and herbs are all low, fruits and vegetables are all medium. Evolving your produce makes it a better fertilizer. As produce approaches perfect quality, it begins to give more fertilizer 'experience' when applied to a plant. Growfruit can be attained at level 10 Gardening from rare seed packets, but trying to get them can be costly. I bought 50 packs and got 9 growfruit.

Plant List

The following are all 32 plants in the base game.

Seed Packet means you can get it from the starting seed packet, purchased on the computer or by clicking a planter pot. What they give you is random. Farmer Packets unlock later, and provide a larger quantity of the same produce. Buy them at Gardening level 7 to get 'Good' quality seeds from them. It seems a bug prevents these from retaining their quality after that level, but we hope it will be fixed in a future patch.

Note on Growth Times

These are rough estimates, and indicate how long after being planted you can expect a plant to begin producing fruit. They will then produce fruit at a rate relative to their original growth time, until they reach the maximum of 4-6 harvestables. Again, if you harvest too early, you're harming your efficiency and resetting the clock. Expect plants with long growth times to take around 3/4 that time to begin producing fruit again. Plants with long growth times grow produce faster when grafted to a Plant with a short growth time.

The Unidentified Fruit Object, aka Intergalactic Growth Pod, Grows Slowly

Note on Values & Making Money with Data

Base Game values are for a normal quality harvest . To maximize profit, I suggest you take cuttings from high-value plants and Graft them onto fast-growing plants. A regular Blackberry bush takes a long time to grow harvestables. If you graft it to a Tomato plant, you'll get much better results. This is especially true of the U.F.O. Plant, which seems to grow slowest of all the Plants in Sims 4.

Grafting for Special Plants

In the table, you'll see grafting combinations that can create special plants when you take either type and splice it to the other. The plant will show the original two, plus the new type when the combos are used. It is OK if other plants are already spliced, so long as the one you take cutting from or graft it to has the proper type listed first.

Finding Plants

Many of the plants listed below can be found in various neighborhoods in The Sims 4. See the Plant Locations Guide for a much more thorough list of places to find plants.

Not listed: Forbidden fruit is an annual, used for the PlantSim challenge but only available when EA does that event. Growfruits appear as part of the spring challenge and are annual.

Cow Plants - Caring for them and Essence of Life

Do not 'take the cake' - this Cow Plant is hungry and Sims are delicious.

Cow Plants are a special type of plant, grown from a Cowplant Berry. Cowplant Berries can be found a few ways, mentioned in the table above. They are the only type that can't be harvested normally and do not display their status when you hover over them. Feeding, Petting, and Playing with the Cow Plant will give your Sims Gardening Skill experience. Taking frequent care of your Cow Plant is essential both to its life and your Sims'.

Here you can see a Dead Cow Plant so you don't need to neglect it just to find out.

If a Cow Plant is growing hungry, which happens after about 12 hours of not being fed, it will offer up cake. Sims cannot play with the Cow Plant at that point, but only choose between Feeding the Plant (wise) or eating the cake (foolish). Guests to your home or your own Sims with autonomy might just go for the cake if they're hungry themselves, and this can cause death. If the cow plant isn't fed after about 8-10 hours of this happening, it will die, leaving behind a rather cool-looking skeleton.

A Cow Plant spits out one lucky Sim. It can now be milked to get a drinkable Essence of emotion.

When a Sim is swallowed by a Cow Plant by going for the Cake, one of two things will happen. The first time they take the cake, they'll get spit out, upon which case they will leave the cow plant feeling disgusting and unnerved; an emotionless husk. There will be a Drained Moodlet that lasts two days. Milking the Cow plant will give you an essence that will give your Sim whatever Emotion that Sim was feeling at the time. According to Forum Member Reubenhood, death only comes if a Sim already has the Drained moodlet that comes from being spit out, so a second encounter with the Cow Plant will kill the Sim.

The Grim Reaper cuts a Sim's Soul free of the Cow Plant

When the Sim dies, the Cow Plant can be milked to get an Essence of Sim's Life. Drinking this will extend the Sim's lifespan by putting them back to the beginning of the current life stage. It's better to save for when your Sim is close to aging up, as you'll get more days out of it.

Drinking the Essence of another Sim's Life increases your Sim's Lifespan

Gardening was the first guide I made for The Sims 4. I love making farms in games, and also have a guide to farming in the indie farming RPG Stardew Valley.

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