Skill Scale Down 2021

This skill has been impacted by the Skill Scale Down. The impact of this for this skill is as follows:

• This skill remains.

• Knowledge from Agriculture may be counted as Gardening knowledge - or as Logistics.

• For how to deal with XP, please see the page Skill Scale Down 2021 for links, information, and a player guide.

• The scope of this skill now includes appropriate aspects of what was previously covered by Agriculture. Please ensure that you take this into account going forward.
• The Design skill used to be a separate skill. It is now considered an intrinsic part of the skill in question. This is the case for all craft skills. Please take this into account going forward.

Overview

Development Credit: Rose Greenwood

The tending and harvesting of plants are all part of the skill and art of gardening. There are many different types of gardens that can be grown by a skilled gardener. However they can all be grown using the same basic principles and tools. All plants require water, light and a growth medium. It is in these fundamental requirements that the differences emerge between each plant. A beautiful rose bush might shun direct sunlight while a rosemary plant might relish in it. It is up to the gardener to deduce the needs of the individual plant and act upon them. Gardening is best learned through practice and experimentation, although assistance from a mentor always helps.

Types of Gardens

Ornamental Gardens

These gardens come in many shapes, sizes and colors. The aim of the gardener when creating an ornamental garden is to create trees with gorgeous blooms and flowers with vibrant petals. There is less interest in Harvesting with this type of garden; Tending is emphasized here. The end product is the garden itself and the beauty it is able to achieve. Often gardeners that specialize in Ornamental gardens will study Design so they can create more beautiful and shapely landscapes that best exhibit the garden’s splendor. As for employment, gardeners can be contracted by local city and village governments to grow ornamental gardens in town squares, parks and other public places. If lucky the gardener can gain steady employment if hired by an estate where they can hone their craft and create gardens that please more aristocratic tastes.

Complementary Skills

Complementary skills along with the descriptions are only given as examples.

Art - Aids in the creation of more interesting and artistic garden designs.

Functional Gardens

Functional gardens are about as diverse as they come. These gardens are grown for a multitude of different reasons, depending on the needs of the grower. The most common type of Functional Garden is the kitchen garden; this garden puts food on the table and provides the gardener with a reliable source of edible fruits, vegetable, and herbs. Aside from the kitchen garden, there is the herb garden that provides healers and apothecaries with raw material for the creation of medicines or poisons. Functional gardens can be grown that specialize in producing pigments for dying cloth or creating glues for binding books. The uses for a Functional garden are endless and can be used creatively to create new compounds or products that have never been seen before.

Complementary Skills

Complementary skills along with the descriptions are only given as examples.

Cooking - Allows the gardener to carefully chose the plants that will result in tasty fruits and vegetables. Similarly to cooking, the gardener with baking in mind may chose to grow fruits suitable to baking into pies or pastries.

Medicine - A healer can grow the plants that best suit the ailments that they face on a trial to trial basis. The clever assassin might grow poisonous berries and herbs for use as poisonous weapon coatings.

Science - The chemist can grow plants that will be useful in creating all kinds of substances such a medical sedatives and painkillers.

Basic Skills

Tending

The knowledge and skills associated with caring for the basic needs of a plant are known as tending.

Preparing the Growth Medium

Available at Novice

The practice of tending plants begins with learning how to prepare the growth medium for the introduction of seeds or rooted stems. This can include tilling the soil in order to aerate the roots and adding fertilizer in order to enrich it.. There are four known types of growing mediums that plants can be grown in. These mediums include: Soil, Sand, Water, and Gravel.

Watering

Available at Novice

The majority of plants require a specific amount of water on a trial to trial basis. Knowing how much water to give is one of the most important skills of Tending. Over-watering is one of the easiest ways to kill a plant. Gardening novices tend to make this mistake fairly often as they lack the patience of more seasoned gardeners.

Managing Light Exposure

Available at Novice

All plants that a gardener might encounter will have very precise needs when it comes to sunlight. While some plants are hardier than others, many will wilt if given too much or too little sunlight. Knowing how much light a plant requires is something that must be learned over time through trial and error.

Pruning

Available at Competent

While some plants can be allowed to grow as they please, many can be enticed to provide more beautiful flowers or a higher yield of fruit if carefully pruned. Pruning involves the use of shears or one’s hands to remove dead or dying parts of the plant in order to redirect energy and resources to the healthier parts of the plant.

Cross-Pollination

Available at Competent

At competent the gardener can begin experimenting with cross-pollination, which allows the gardener to create hybrid plants by artificially pollinating between different species of plant. Cross-Pollination involves the gardener taking a cutting of the male flower and dusting it's pollen on the female flower. Another thing to remember is that cross-pollination requires that both plants be from the same botanical family. This rule can be somewhat flexible, allowing for some creativity. A good example is cross-pollinating a plum with an apricot since they are both of the same family. The resulting fruit would share traits from both species. Use your best judgement when choosing plants to hybridize. Typically a successful cross-pollination will require greenhouse conditions as to keep natural pollinators like bees and butterflies from spoiling the process. Normally the desired hybrid takes a couple to several generations of growth in order to gain the specific traits the gardener is looking for.

Splicing

Available at Expert

Splicing is a very unique way of altering and propagating plants. It allows the gardener to slice a thin piece of one plant and graft it onto another, using twine and wax to secure the splice. If done with care, splicing can allow the gardener to create a single tree that grows many different types of fruit, or a flowering plant that contains all the colors of the rainbow. In medicinal gardening, splicing can allow the gardener to grow plants tailored to specific illnesses by combining different herbs into one singular plant. Due to the artificial nature of splicing, a spliced plant can never create a child spliced plant through natural reproduction. The spliced plant is in essence an amalgamation of many plants that have been carefully grafted together for a particular use.

Harvesting

The act of harvesting is associated with collecting the produce, flowers, or medicinal components of a plant in order to prepare the plant for use or storage.

Collection

Available at Novice

This skill is critical for every type of garden, as this is when the gardener’s hard work pays off. In order to avoid damaging produce or bruising a delicate flower, the gardener must develop nimble hands and unyielding patience. Shears are the best tool for collecting what the garden has produced, but hands can be used as well.

Preparation

Available at Novice

At the end of the harvesting process the plant must either be used when fresh or stored away for later use. Herbs can be dried and ground into powder in order to be packaged as medicine or spices. Vegetables and fruits can be dehydrated if they are to be used at a later date, but are more commonly eaten fresh from the vine. Flowers are customarily used immediately after being picked but they can also be pressed and dried in order to preserve some of their beauty.

Skill Ranks

Novice (0-25)

A novice gardener has the basic skills in order to grow hardy, common plants that easily grow with very little care. The novice can correctly prepare one chosen type of growth medium for planting but does not yet understand how to utilize other growing mediums. Over-watering and leaf scorching is very common at this stage as the gardener does not yet understand the watering or light requirements for most plants. Pruning is beyond the novice’s abilities and will permanently destroy the plant if not done without the utmost care. Even if the plant is not destroyed it will be maimed permanently at best. At this stage harvesting will only grant a quarter or less of the intended yield.

Competent (26-75)

A competent gardener is able to grow common and uncommon plants that require a moderate amount of care. The gardener can now use two types of growth mediums at this stage. Over-watering becomes less common and the gardener is more cognizant of the light levels required for different plants. Now that they have reached competency the gardener can begin pruning plants in order increase their vigor. An example of a successful pruning would be that the remaining flowers will have richer colors and a more delightful scent. Occasionally over-pruning will occur which can maim a plant temporarily; this can be remedied if the gardener is willing to put in the extra time to nurse the plant back to health. Cross-Pollination can be experimented with at competence. Most attempts will fail; if successful the gardener will very rarely be rewarded with the traits they desire. Plants may be malformed and pale in comparison to the parent plants. When the time comes to harvest, the gardener can expect half of their plantings to grant the desired yield.

Expert (76-150)

At the expert level the gardener can now also grow exotic plants that require a high amount of care. The expert gardener is able to comfortably use three different growth mediums. The expert gardener can naturally infer the water and light requirements for the greater majority of plants. Pruning will now greatly increase the vigor of plants, allowing for much more beautiful flowers, more potent herbs, and tastier produce than could be expected at Novice and Competent. The expert will very rarely run the risk of maiming their plants with pruning shears. Even if a plant is damaged the gardener can quickly return the plant back to health with little effort. Cross-Pollination can now be achieved with some success; resulting plants will normally be healthy and produce the desired hybrid within one to two generations. The gardener can begin experimenting with splicing at this skill level. However many of these experiments will end in failure if not handled with the highest level of care. Harvests can now grant three quarters of the desired yield.

Master (151-250)

At mastery the gardener is now able to grow rare plants that require an extreme level of care. All growth mediums are now available to the master gardener. At a glance the gardener can immediately deduce the amount of water and light a plant will need for optimal growth. Pruning has become an art form, allowing the gardener to exponentially increase the vigor of a plant with very little effort. Cross-Pollination can be successfully achieved on the gardener's first attempt, almost always producing the desired hybrid. Through study and practice splicing has become a simple endeavor, allowing the master gardener to create fanciful creations that produce combinations of fruits and flowers that have never been seen before. When the time comes to harvest, the gardener can expect all of their plants to yield product.

Progressing Gardening

• Capstones
• Grandmasters
• Tier 2 PCs

Gardening Knowledge

The collapsible below has examples of Skill Knowledge for this skill. If you are unsure of what Knowledge is, please check the Knowledge Primer for details. Please remember that our Peer Reviewers will be checking to make sure that your Knowledge claim is appropriate to what you have learned in the thread and ensuring that you are not duplicating knowledge.

A guide to knowledge can be found here (this link takes you to the site) and the person reviewing your thread will do so following the steps laid out in the Peer Reviewer Guide. If you wish to use one of these knowledge in your request, please ensure that it is appropriate to your thread.