More about Friendship Flowers and Gardening on the Island

The Botanic Garden is situated on the Island.  There is a total of 12 places for flowerpots in the garden and four places for Neighbour flowerpots.  Only two of your own places will be unlocked at the start.  Tools that can be used on flowerpots include trowels called 'spades' and trimmers.  These can be used at specific intervals only.  One cannot purchase any of the possible upgrades for the Garden, whether in the form of more places for flowerpots or to unlock the 'Glasshouse'.  You only can unlock new options by growing flowers and engaging in other Garden actions.

Other tools apart from the Spade and Trimmer that will be unlocked at higher levels include Insecticide, a UV Light and Music.  Music can be used only on a Level 3 Flower.

Your Garden Level is displayed on a pillar with a five-petal flower or five-point star on top of it.  After planting a second flower and using 1 Trowel/Spade on each of the flowers, my Level remained Level 1 but I had earned 3 out of the 8 points needed to ascend to Level 2.  Each Level upgrade requires more points.

Your Botanic Garden Level has nothing whatsoever to do with your general Experience Level.  You raise it only by tending your Garden.  Initially the Greenhouse when unlocked had a limited number fo plots for your own Friendship Flowers and you had to unlock the remainder by increasing your Level.  When the developers began to issue special sale Friendship Flowers, however, I do believe all farmers were given the total of 5 Greenhouse slots.

There are three little stalls to the right of the Pillar.  The first is the Mystery Shop.  The second is a Flower Book akin to your Fish Book, listing all possible Flowers and your own mastery of them.  The third is a help stall, indicated by a question mark.

Once a flowerpot is placed, tending the flower is time-based.  The icon of the Tool that is needed to tend the Flower will appear above the flowerpot and, provided you have the Tool ins question, all that is needed is a tap of a finger.  It appears that the actual Tool that is needed is random, although certain tools such as the UV Light and Insecticide require a specific level of Garden experience.

The Flower Book contains the following:

Ordinary Flower Chapter:
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Venus Flytrap

Viola Tricolour

Chrysanthemum

Epiphyllum

All ordinary Flowers can be purchased from the Shop.  You need to access the Shop regularly to see what is available on any given day at any given time.  Remember that you can refresh the list of Items offered for Coin purchase.

Each Flower has a different growing time and the time that must elapse before another Tool can be used is different in each case.  The Chrysanthemum is one of the slowest-growing flowrs.  The Viola Tricolour appears to be one of the fastest.  You need not grow two of the same type of Flower in order to complete the requirement to grow 2 Level 2 Flowers for the Mission.  Obviously you do not need two of the same type to create a hybrid.  As the Mystery Shop Coin Menu will change each time you refresh, you can choose to wait until the flower you want appears, even when you have an empty space in your garden.

Super Flower Chapter
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Super Venus Flytrap

Super Viola Tricolour

Super Chrysanthemum

Super Epiphyllum

Super Lily

Super Jagger Lips

Super Flowers are obtained through cross breeding.  There is a low chance of achieving these.

Mega Flower Chapter
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Maga Chrysanthemum

Mega Epiphyllum

Mega Lily

Mega Jagger Lips

Mega Rose

MEga Rafflesia

Mega Venus Flytrap

Mega Viola Tricolour

Mega Flowers are obtained through cross breeding.

Extraordinary Hybrids
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Doughnut Flower

Super Lollipop Flower

Cupcake Flower

Super Doughnut Flower

Super Cupcake Flower

Mega Doughnut Flower

Meag Cupcake Flower

Lollipop Flower

Mega Lollipop Flower

These flowers are obtained on rare occasions through cross breeding.

A new Island tutorial Quest is involved in this.

Trading Places
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Trading Places I
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Darryl:  I made a bet with Felicia on whose tasks are harder.  Now I have to do all Felicisa's tasks for a day and she'll do mine!  And guess what?  I'll be working in the flowr garden all day!  No way, it's so girly!

Have 2 flowers in the garden
  N.B.  You will begin with one flower.  I was able to purchase a second flower using Coins in the Mystery section of the Market.  I do not know if the new items available in the Mystery section change daily or if they always are available but today, one can purchase 10 Trimmers for 8000 Coins.

Help 2 flowers with the Spade
  Skip for 3 RC

  N.B.  When you are able to use a 'spade' on a flower, the icon of a trowel will appear above the flower pot.  It really is a trowel and not a spade...

Help 2 flowers with the Trimmer
  Skip for 6 RC

Reward: 1500 Coins, 250 XP, 15 Dev Points

Darryl:  That wasn't too hard!  Especially with your help!  I wonder how Felicia has been getting on with my work!

Trading Places II
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Oh dear!  Felicia left me instructions and according to them, I have to crossbreed flowers.  I have no idea on how to do this!  Can you help me, so that Felicia won't laugh at me?

Have 2 matured Level 1 Flowers
  Skip for 6 RC

Crossbreed 1 level 1 flower
  Skip for 6 RC

Reward: 1500 Coins, 250 XP, 15 Dev Points

Darryl:  Wow!  Did you see that?  Look, we've got a special flower!

N.B.  The Chrysanthemum takes far longer to mature than the Epiphyllum.  When my first Chrysanthemum finally matured, I had been continuing to feed the Epiphyllum for a day or so at least.  Cross-breeding the two resulted in a Super Chrysanthemum in this case.

Trading Places III
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DarryL;  Oh!  I think I can even win the bet you know!  All we need to do is take care of these little flowers when they need something!  Look, I'll show you!

Have 2 Level 2 Flowers
  Skip for 6 RC

Help 2 Flowers with the insecticide
  Skip for 6 RC

Help 2 flowers with the UV Light
  Skip for 6 RC

Reward: 1500 Coins, 250 XP, 15 Dev Points

Darryl:  These garden flowers are so delicate.  I was scared about hurting them when I used the garden tools!

Trading Places IIV
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Darryl:  Remember the flowers which you helped me crossbreed for the first time?  We need to find another flower to crossbreed with this one!   I still need to learn how to do this!  Please help me one more time!

Have 2 matured level 2 flowers
  Skip for 6 RC

Crossbreed 2 level 2 flowers
   Skip for 6 RC

Rewards: 1500 Coins, 250 XP, 15 Dev Points

Darryl:  Yes, ow we have one more resident for our garden!  Grow, little guy!  Become big and beautiful!

Received a Mega Epiphyllum by crossbreeding a Super Epiphyllum and Super Chrysanthemum incidentally.


Trading Places V
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Darryl:  I was planning to run to  the fishing pier with my friends for a few hours, but these flowers need constant attention!  I give Felicia credit, this juob isn't as easy as I thought it would be!  But I still want to win the bet!

Have 2 Level 3 Flowers
  Skip for 6 RC

Help 2 Flowers with Music
  Skip for 6 RC
  Note that you will need a Level 3 Flower in order to be able to use Music.

Reward: 1500 Coins, 250 XP, 15 Dev Points

Darryl:  Nice!  All flowers have had their fair share of my attention!  Now I have some free time!

Trading Places VI
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Darryl:  We have enough flowers in our garden!  Time for some experiments!  I will corssbreed flowers and try to get a totally new type of flower!  Felicia will be stunned!

Have 2 Matured level 3 flowers
  Skip for 6 RC

Crossbreed 2 Level 3 flowers
  Skip for 6 RC

Reward: 1500 Coins, 250 XP, 15 Dev Points

Darryl:  It's so peaceful here in this garden!  No wonder Felicia spends hours here!

Trading Places VII
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Darryl:  I need to free up some space in the garden.  Can you help me decide which one I should sell?  I am so attached to them now that I won't be able to make a choice!

Sell 1 Matured Flower
  Skip for 6 RC

Reward: 1500 Coins, 250 XP, 15 Dev Points

Darryl:  Thank you for your help!  Now we have more space and more coins! Gardening sure is an awesome thing!

Last quest in sequence.

Mystery Shop
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The new Mystery Shop offers the opportunity to buy new Flowers for the Garden, more implements for the Garden, as well as items from both the original Seaside Farm and the Island Farm, provided always that you have unlocked the Island and the Garden.  If not, you will not see the Items from the Garden or the Island Items.   On my second farm initially, I had unlocked the Island but not made the expansion that allowed the Garden to appear.  I therefore saw only regular Island Items and Seaside Items in the Mystery Shop.  Note, however, that Crops and products you may not have unlocked yet WILL appear in the Mystery Shop from time to time, as well as a multitude of Sea creatures.  For players like me who dislike the fishing option, it is great to be able to buy seafood supplies in the shop now.

The Mystery Shop moreover, in terms of the new Coin option is on a timer that allows the player to refresh up to four times, depending on the amount of time that has passed.

Be advised that you can have only a limit of 99 tools of any kind for the Garden.  When you have 99 Spades, you cannot purchase more until you have used some of them.

Seeds for flowers cannot be stored.  If you do not have a spot to plant the seed, you cannot purchase it.

Greeenhouse
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The Greenhouse is where your own Friendship Flowers are located, both the real Friendship Flowers and those that you have purchased in a special sale.  You can keep purchased Friendship Flowers in your Gift Box, however, if you wish to keep a slot or two open for a real Freindship Flower.

When  a Friendship Flower has been created in your garden, it immediately will go into the Greenhouse. You then need to open the Greenhouse to tap on the flower in order to find a Neighbour to tend it.  When you have chosen the Neighbour, you then need to visit his/her Island farm to place your flower on an empty Neighbour Plot by tapping on the plot.

There is a new option in Seaside that allows you to place a special welcome pink or red ribbon round your Neighbour plots to let your Neighbours know that you would welcome Friendship Flowers.  Although most farmers do welcome the chance to tend them, there are farmers who would rather not have the burden of what can be considerable labour, especially if the flower is Level 2.  Thus the new option.

If you find that your Neighbour is not tending your Flower, you should be able to take it back and place it on another farm.  If you do this, however, all growth progress will be lost to the flower.  It is not a step to be taken hastily.  Some farmers have more access to the internet and the game than others.  It may not be neglect but lack of access that makes one farmer slower to grow your Flowers than another.

More about Friendship Flowers
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As discussed previously, the Botanic Garden is on the Island and is tied to one of the Island expansions.  It has begun to feature in the time-restricted Missions so if you have access to the Island but have not made that particular expansion, you may wish to do so.

Ordinary Flowers
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There are three different types of flowers basically.  There are the ordinary Flowers that you buy in the Mystery Shop, grow on your side of the Botanic Garden and then crossbreed with another mature Flower os the same Level after it has grown to maturity itself.  These flowers all can be found in your Flower Book in the first three categories or chapters.

Real Friendship Flowers
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The second type of Flower is what call the real Friendship Flower.  All types appear in your Book in the final chapter for Friendship Flowers.  They can be produced only through crossbreeding and are a random result.  Usually, you will find that a Level 3 Flower crossbred with another Level 3 Flower is the one most likely to produce a Friendship Flower although it can occur with two Level 2 Flowers as well.  The Friendship Flower you obtain in this situation would be a level 1 Flower.

It is when a real Friendship Flower is sent to a Neighbour, brought to maturity and crossbred that you may receive a level 2 Friendship Flower.  Again, this is a random result.  Too many times, you will tend to the Friendship Flower a neighbour has entrusted to you only to obtain an ordinary Flower when you finally are able to crossbreed it.

Clam Friendship Flower
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The Clam Friendship Flower is a REAL Friendship Flower now given as a reward for completing any timed mission's Collection Set within the period before it expires (or within a few hours of expiration!).  Even if you have not unlocked the Botanic Garden yet, you WILL receive a Clam Friendship Flower if you complete the Collection Set in time.  It will go into your Gift Box and can be used later.

Even if you have unlocked the Botanic Garden, you need to have reached Level 6 in the Garden before you will unlock the first slot in your Glasshouse/Greenhouse.  You then can transfer any Clam Friendship Flower you have earned from your Gift Box to the Glasshouse and from there, place it on any neighbour's farm provided that neighbour has space for it.  There is no time limit to placing Friendship Flowers.

Note that you now can completed timed missions that have expired from the Lighthouse but you cannot earn the Clam Friendship Flower once the original time period given for the initial registration of the Collection Set expires.  You still will be able to register the Collection Set for the ordinary rewards of 1 RC and 88 Green Mystrons but the Clam Friendship Flower will not be included any longer.

Special Sale Friendship Flowers
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Finally, there is the type of Friendship Flower that you obtain through purchase in a sale.  These, as of August 2017, have been of a number of different varieties: the Ice Cream Flower and the Macaron Flower, the Fire Chocolate Flower, the Snowflake Friendship Flower, the Coffee Friendship Flower and the Cocktail Friendship Flower.  The Ice Cream Flower gives higher RC when crossbred than the Macaron but the Macaron has two separate Decorations associated with it.  When you have opened your 8th Gift Bag from a Macaron Flower, you receive the Spoon Shovel Decoration.  When you open the 10th, you receive the Macaron Flower Decoration.  Both can be registered in the Gallery.

Note that the Coffee Friendship Flower gives Pet Cards as rewards both to the host and the neighbour who grows the flower to maturity and crossbreeds it.

The Friendship Flowers that appear in sales are not included in your Flower Book and no one I know ever received a Friendship Flower or even rare Flower from crossbreeding one.  The real purpose of these is to share RC with a friend and to earn XP towards the upgrade of your Botanic Garden.

Now, however, Botanic Garden Flowers can be registered in the Gallery in a separate department and all of the special sales Friendship Flowers are included.

Colourful Plumeria
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Note that the Colourful Plumeria is tied to this type of Friendship Flower.  It only appears in the Mystery Shop when the sales are running and no one I know ever received a rare flower from crossbreeding the Colourful Plumeria with another flower.  The purpose of this type is speed... it matures faster even than the Epiphyllum or Tricolour Violet.  It appears to be related to both of these actually as the flowers you receive when you crossbreed the Plumeria tend to be one or the other of these.

How to Crossbreed a Friendship Flower
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Any Friendship Flower, whether it is a 'real' Friendship Flower or a 'sale' Friendship Flower will be located on the left side of the Botanic Garden.  There is a total of four plots on the left side of the Garden.  You cannot place a Flower there or use the space for crossbreeding.  ONLY A NEIGHBOUR CAN PLACE A FLOWER ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE GARDEN.

There is a fairly new option for the left side of the garden where you can place a little pink fence to indicate your willingness to accept and grow Friendship Flowers.  Tap on the individual plot to place the little ribbon fence and you will see the option either to place it or to let your Neighbours know that you do NOT want any Friendship Flowers.  You must do this for each of the four plots separately.  These ribbon fences do expire.  When one expires, you will receive a notification.  Simply place a new one...

You tend Friendship Flowers in the same way that you tend your own Flowers located on the right side of the Garden.  The time between tendings is random, although Level 2 and Level 3 Flowers obviously take longer to mature and may have longer time spans between tending.  The sale Friendship Flowers can be tended more frequently than any other flowers.  As they usually carry special rewards in the form of RC and even on occasion a special Decoration, this allows these Rewards to be earned more quickly.

When any Flower, either on your side of the Garden or the Neighbour side of the Garden matures, you will see a message to that effect.  Once any Flower matures, you can crossbreed it.  It is essential to do so where the flowers on the left side of the Garden are concerned, because their placement is an act of trust on the part of your Neighbour.  If you fail to crossbreed a mature Flower on the left side of the Garden, the Neighbour who sent it has every right to take it back and foster it again elsewhere.

In order to crossbreed ANY Flower, you msut have a Mature Flower of the same Level.  If the Flower is on the left side of the garden, you will need a mature Flower on the right side of the Garden in order to be able to crossbreed.

Directions for Crossbreeding
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When any Flower on the left side of the Garden matures, you need to use the Move Tool to drag it to a Mature Flower of the same Level on the right side of the Garden.  Place it on top of the Mature Flower on the right side of the Garden and you will see the option to Crossbreed.  It only takes a moment to crossbreed any flower.  When complete, the result will depend on the type of flowers that were crossbred as follows:

If both flowers are on your side of the Garden, YOU will create a new Flower.  It could be a regular flower of a higher level, a special Flower of a higher Level or a real Friendship Flower.  By crossbreeding two flowers on your side of the Garden, you will free a plot there.  The new flower will go on one of the plots but the other will become vacant.

If one flower is on the left side of the Garden, you need to take it to the right side of the Garden to crossbreed.  The results will depend on the type of Flower sent by your Neighbour.

If your Neighbour sent you a 'real' Friendship Flower, the results will be one of the following:

A regular Flower of a higher Level
A special Flower
Another 'real' Friendship Flower

If your Neighbour sent you a 'sale' Friendship Flower, the results will be one of the following:

A regular Flower of a higher level
A special Flower

Random Results
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I remember when the fishing option first was released in Seaside.  We logged all the results of the position in which the bait was cast to try to discern the nature of the catch.  Utterly useless: results are random.  I firmly believe it is the same for the Botanic Garden.  We could log our results until the proverbial cows come home and still not have any way to make certain that we obtain specific flowers in crossbreeding.  I do hope that the developers will modify the incidence of obtaining the Level 2 Friendship Flowers when Level 1 Friendship Flowers such as the Cupcake Flower, Doughnut Flower and Lollipop Flowers are crossbred.  Even more time and energy goes into the tending of the level 2 Friendship Flowers and when one ultimately obtains only a common Flower after crossbreeding one, it is too depressing for words.  Not to mention how upset I am not to be able to send a rare Friendship Flower back to its owner after crossbreeding finally occurs.  I really think that this aspect of the game needs to be changed in our favour.

There are different probabilities, however.  Apart from the possible result of a Friendship Flwoer when two ordinary Flowers are crossbred, there is a possibility of obtaining a flower tyat is rare.  The rare types are the Jagger Lips, the Lily, the Rafflesia and the Rose.

In my own experience, the Lily appears to be associated with the Epiphyllum and Viola Tricolour while the Jagger Lips appears to be associated with the Venus Flytrip and possibly the Chrysanthemum.  I personally believe that although all the rare types are described as having a 'rare chance' of appearing in the Flower Book, it is the Rafflesia and the Rose that are the rarest of all.  No one I know ever has obtained one so far...

Here I am descending to the realm of pure speculation.  Is it possible that one only can obtain the Rafflesia or the Rose by crossbreeding two OTHER rare flowers such as the Jagger Lips and the Lily?  Time will tell...

It is possible that the appearance of the Rafflesia and Rose, although random, may be more likely if you are at the highest level of Experience in the Botanic Garden.  On the other hand, the Jagger Lips was a result on my lower level Rosewood Farm long before Freyashawk obtained it on the higher level Harvest Moon Farm.  The Botanical Garden is at a higher level there, in other words, than Rosewood's Botanical Garden.  So perhaps it is entirely random after all.  It does seem odd though that none of the farmers to whom I have spoken have had either Rafflesia or Rose.

A little note here about the nature of the Rafflesia.  It is famous in the Animal Crossing series of games as a terrible weed that occurs if you neglect your village shamelessly and fail to pull your regular weeds... In the Rune Factory series, it is a 'boss' monster you must defeat.   In Seaside, it is a rare flower.

I have used the basic designation for the rare flowers rather than using the Level names.  In other words, there are Super Lilies and Mega Lilies, Super Jagger Lips and Mega Jagger Lips...

Finally, your ability to send Friendship Flowers out to Foster Care depends partly on your experience Level in the Botanic Garden.  Initially it began with two slots but when they released the sales with the Macaron Friendship Flower, they expanded the number of slots even for low level Botanic Farmers to four.  When you purchase a Sale flower, you can keep it in your Gift Box until needed.  I recommend this actually as I had a situation where a real Friendship Flower from a neighbour matured but I did not have any free slots in my Glasshouse.  I was uncertain if this would affect my chances to produce a Level 2 Friendship Flower as it would have nowhere to go.  I therefore had to wait until one of my existing Friendship Flowers on Neighbours' Garden plots matured in order to clear a space in the Greenhouse for the hypothetical Friendship Flower.

There is a question here as well.  Where should you send your Friendship flowers for foster care?  Well, there is a little reciprocal rule that is unofficial.  Where sale flowers are concerned, when some one sends one to you, it is good manners to send one to that farmer if you have any.  Where real Friendship Flowers are concerned, should you be fortunate enough to breed a Level 2 type, you really ought to send it back to the farmer who sent it to you for fostering in the first place.

Although there are many farmers who request Friendship Flowers, there are others who do not bother much with the garden.   The speed with which a flower matures depends partly upon the frequency with which you tend it.  I have a post in my Family Farm Seaside Freyashawk Group where farmers can post their Friendship flower requests and status.  Remember that any Friendship Flower has to be crossbred with a normal Flower when it matures, so keeping Level 1 mature flowers in the Garden is one factor that makes some farmers more desirable 'foster parents' than others.

Note that, if you feel that a farmer is not tending the Friendship Flower you placed in his/her garden, there is an option to take it back and re-foster it somewhere else.   Any progress made in its growth will be lost of course if you do so but if you see that the farmer truly is inactive, it is good to know that you can rescue your flower from oblivion.

Garden Strategies
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It is your Farm, your Island and your Botanic Garden.  How you choose to allocate your resources there is your business, but there are a couple of consideration that may or may not make a difference. First of all, there is a Quest sequence that is associated with the Botanic Garden.  Quest sequences on the Island give Dev Points and these are critical if you wish to have access to all options, including the Pizza Machine.

You do have a limited number of plots in your Garden and a limited number of slots in your Glasshouse.  You will reach a point ultimately where you may be forced to make some difficult choices.  Do you opt for the Friendship Flower strategy by keeping as many mature Level 1 Flowers in your Garden as possible or do you concentrate on your own Flower Book and the business of raising Level 2 and then Level 3 Flowers.  With the sales, I found that I was selling every Level 2 Flower that was obtained through crossbreeding instantly without tending it at all, thereby losing potential income and the ability to add another result to my book in the interest of replacing it with another Level 1 Flower for potential crossbreeding with a Macaron Flower from a Neighbour.  That was the choice I made but other players may make a very different decision.

Level 1 Flowers ar ethe quickest to mature and each type has a different growth rate.  Level 2 Flowers take longer but the slowest are the Level 3 Flowers.  As you increase your Garden experience level, you will unlock new plots but it takes time.    The Botanic Garden really is a cosmic lesson in patience.