Growing more flowers?

[Leroy 315]

It was the xanadu topic about trees being bugged that got me to thinking...

 

I first came to xanadu when it was still brand new. The rolling hills and vast forests were a sight to behold, no roads cutting them into sections, nobody having hewn them for farms, no hills having been cut into plateaus. The fields in particular I distinctly remember being covered in flowers. I had never seen anything like that on any other server before. People plant flowers along roads or by their house but never have I seen someone make a 300x 300 area of open, rolling, grasslands littered with flower patches.

 

now the question;

 

If I want to make a field of flowers... how do I do it? I cut flowers from one tile and plant them on another tile to get that tile to have flowers... but the tile I cut them from no longer has flowers. how does one multiply flowers? I find a wheat, plant it, harvest it and result in having more wheat. I harvest a flower and plant it and only have the one flower, I gain no extra. In fact it would seem the system would reduce the flower numbers over time, with failed plantings and loss due to storage (monthly bsb % loss) no to mention rot from taking damage or use in flower pots.

 

How do I CREATE more flowers?

[bwg 537]

Grass tiles have a random chance to spawn flowers, hunt around, pick 'em and plant 'em.

Edited November 19, 2014 by bwg

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

I have always wanted confirmation of this, so I hope we get an answer from a developer who knows.

 

An area near me, a former village  now long dead, is now meadows covered in flowers. There are more flower tiles, than non-flower tiles, in that meadow. I believe that they slowly "spread" similar to the way that other tiles do, such as grass, trees, even marshlands. Which means planting flowers might encourage other flowers to spread in the area, but it is such a SLOW process that it is hard to document. Maybe it only needs grass and not other flowers. However, I know this deserted village used to be covered in pavement. The pavement eroded, the grass and trees spread in -- and eventually so did the fields of flowers. Probably they grow best in certain conditions. Probably less traffic gives better chance of flowers. Perhaps they need grass in two tiles each direction to spawn.  Possibly other flowers within a ... 3 tile radius? ... increase the odds of flowers sprouting. Probably not always the exact same color, there are "odds" of common yellow to rare "greenish-yellow"/spotted

 

The flower meadow near me, needed at least a year in peace to grow there. Maybe longer. It is probably not something to do in a few weeks. We get very little traffic (this is an older server, Indy. Plus a now "remote" section of Indy). 

 

Hopefully one day, we can collect flower seeds from our playermade flower beds and flower pots, and grow flowers.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Brash_Endeavors

[bwg 537]

Brash, based on my observations the grass tile can spawn flowers as it's growing to a new height.  Therefore, if left long enough, a grass field can become almost all flowers.

[Leroy 315]

nice to know but that sucks, like if you can only get a sprout but it destroys the tree... how many oaks would be growing if that was the case.

I can only make a flower meadow if I destroy a flower meadow.

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

Plant bare dirt using thatch (made with leggat tool from mixed grass) not flowers. Thatch works just like it was "grass seed", but it fails less often than flowers. Wait and give it time to mature. 

 

On wide areas of grass, plant flowers in a spread out grid:

 

F g g g F g g g F g g g

g g g g g g g g g g g g

g g g g g g g g g g g g

g g g g g g g g g g g g

F g g gF g g g F g g g

 

This way, on the chance flowers have an increased chance to spawn other flowers nearby, your odds go up.

 

But it may be that any grass tile has an equal chance to spawn flowers the next time it goes UP a level (short, medium, tall, wild) and that floweers per se do not spawn more flowers. If that is true, perhaps cutting "wild" length grass gives more chances to go through all the stages again and spawn flowers. However its also possible that you instead want to let "wild" grass age even longer so it "goes to seed" via flowers (which are in turn seeds for grass)

 

 Flowers are semi rare, and I think they SHOULD be. They should be nature's way of saying it is happy and well. That people have not been strip-clearcutting and packing and trampling and that the earth has has time to rest and heal. When I saw the beautifiul pictures of pristine Xanadu, I hoped someone would take "before" and "90 days later" pictures. Because I knew it was never going to look like that again.  Treebeard: Side? I am on nobody's side, because nobody is on my side, little Orc. No one cares for the woods anymore.

 

You can plant flowerbeds and potted plants and pretty ornamental bushes for decor. 

I like the idea that meadows full of wild flowers are much more fragile and when you DO see them, you stop in amazement. 

You won't be amazed if every patch of grass has been converted to superflowers with 10 minutes effort.

And you will be REALLY proud of a meadow that you brought to flowering glory through careful tending. 

(until someone paves it all)

 

 

But I still want to gather seeds from my indoor flowerpots even if it is only one season out of the year 

Edited November 20, 2014 by Brash_Endeavors

[Garit 366]

Why not just let us Harvest Flowers from plant pots.....every 2 Wurm days or so ?

[Ayes 3,715]

It would be nice if we could pick wild flowers in a similar manner to sprouts that would leave the flowers that they were picked from remaining growing.

 

=Ayes=

[Onyr 185]

Just as Brash observed, left alone, it seems to change to flowers very effectively.

 

I don't gather cut grass at my place, and have left a hillside just wild grass.  I am amazed at how much has grown into flowers, which I pick when I want to turn a terraform project back to grass. 

 

The grazed tiles don't seem to change to flowers, but can keep up mostly as just short or medium in the pens.

 

Un-grazed "growing wild" grass changes often.

[Lithien 268]

My experience is also that flowers are most abundant in the least travelled areas and spread/spawn most on wild grass. The biggest issue with creating flower meadows, is that trees and bushes always end up spreading in and gradually take over. I wish that tree and bush-spreading was limited to grass and dirt tiles, but wasn't possible for flower tiles, so it would be easier to have a mix of the two, and not having to clearcut trees for miles on end in order to give flowers a chance to survive.

[thorgot 465]

Plant bare dirt using thatch (made with leggat tool from mixed grass) not flowers. Thatch works just like it was "grass seed", but it fails less often than flowers. Wait and give it time to mature.

Mind blown. Thanks for this, I've been using flowers because I missed this addition.

[Brash_Endeavors 4,735]

It's a lot easier to get mixed grass than to get flowers  Plus you don't have to keep picking and replanting.

 

Plus a new skill to learn and level is So Much Fun

Edited November 21, 2014 by Brash_Endeavors

[Wizlawz 10]

i dont see why we can't pick the seeds from flowers.

 

i was wondering how to plant flowers as wel besides flower pots.