';

Gardening Tour

screen shot

A new type of festival added to Harvest Moon: A New Beginning is the seasonal Gardening Tour. This event is specifically for you to show off your design eye to impress the show judges with the items you've placed in your Gardening Space. If you do a good job with your layout, then you can gain friendship with the villagers and a little bit of money. If you do a poor job, the judges are sure to let you know (oops!) and you may lose a small amount of friendship.

To get started, you need to build a Gardening Space. On Summer 11 of your first year, Dunhill will visit your house and explain the Gardening Tour. He will give you the blueprint for the Gardening Space, which requires 8 Small Stone and 15 Small Material Stone to build. You can place the Gardening Space on your farm or in the village area but it will take up a 14x14 area of space. Where you locate the space is not permanent, although you can't move the Gardening Space if you have objects placed on it.

Starting on Fall 2, and on 2nd of every season, Dunhill will visit your house and ask if you would like to enter the Gardening Tour. If you do, then he will return on the 11th and take you to your space for the judging.

Designing Your Gardening Space

The Gardening Space can be decorated with a variety of constructed object, but not everything can be used. You can't use the scenery Decorations, Pathways, and Plazas in your Gardening Space; these objects are for decorating the village itself and not your personal Gardening Space.

Objects that you place into your space will earn you Gardening Points (GP). The more GP you have, the better the judges will like your design.

screen shot

The way you design your Gardening Space will earn you a starting GP value. Objects that you place into your space will earn you a starting-base of 5 GP for each object. After the base GP, you can earn bonus GP in several categories:

All of the area in your Gardening Space can be filled with objects and knick-knacks; you do not need to create a path through the space or make it symmetric in design. You don't have to color-coordinate your objects or make sure they're all made out of the same type of material.

The Gardening Space is 14x14 in size, but you can only decorate the interior 12x12 area. Keep in mind that some objects can only be placed out in certain areas. For example, the Watering Spot can be placed within a Gardening Space but only if it is on your farm area; you can't put a Watering Spot in the space if your Gardening Space is in the village area.

If more than half of the items on your Gardening Space were used in the previous Gardening Tour, then you won't earn any Gardening Points. Recycling your previous entry isn't acceptable to the judges and will earn you -500 FP with them. Also, if you don't have anything in your Gardening Space when it is time for judging, you will earn -1000 FP with the villagers who arrived to judge your style.

Individual Objects

Some of the objects you can place in your Gardening Space have a bonus GP value. The more difficult the object is to craft, the higher the Gardening Points you can earn for placing it in your space. Mostly the flower pots, colored benches, and fencing pieces have their own GP values:

Object Sets

When combined together, some objects become matching sets. Putting the set-items into your Gardening Space will earn you bonus GP. The items don't need to be touching each other but must be within the 12x12 space.

Another "set" that you can use outside of your Gardening Space is the Gardening Tour Combo. If you place a combination of at least 10 of the following items in the same area as the Gardening Space, then you will earn a bonus 100 GP during the Gardening Tour: Red Flower Arch, Blue Flower Arch, Tricycle Pot, Watering Can Pot, and Boot Pot.

Coordinating Themes

screen shot

There are several theme categories that objects can belong to. Some decorations only belong to one theme while others match many themes. The 12 theme categories are: Animal, Eastern, Chic, Country, Fall, Oriental, Spring, Summer, Unique, Water, Western, and Winter.

Objects will have points tied to their associated themes. For example, the Milk Cans are +10 to the Country theme but also +1 to the Animal theme and +1 to the Unique theme. To earn a Theme bonus, you need to have enough objects of the same theme in your Gardening Space.

For the Animal, Chic, Fall, Spring, Summer, Unique, Water, and Winter themes you only need to have 10 theme points or more to earn a bonus 100 GP. This is pretty easy to do! If you put down two Margaret Flowerbeds (+4 to Spring each) and a Potted Pink Roses (+2) then you'll earn 100 GP just from those three items (4+4+2 = 10 Spring points).

For the Eastern, Country, Oriental, and Western themes you'll need at least 50 points in the theme's category to earn the +100 GP. But, if you happen to place enough objects to have 100 theme points or more, then you'll earn 200 GP!

The Garden Judges

GPFP
0-500
1 to 250+300
251 to 500+500
501 to 750+700
751 to 1000+1000
1001 or more+1300

On the morning of the 11th, Dunhill will lead you from your house to the Gardening Space. The judges that appear are random; some judges may be villagers while others are faceless people. You will have between four and twenty judges depending on how well your last Gardening Tour turned out. If it was bad, you'll have fewer judges. If it was good, then you'll have more judges than the last show. The judging doesn't take very long at all.

The amount of Friendship Points you'll earn with the villagers who are judging your Gardening Space is based on the total Gardening Points you've achieved. You'll earn friendship with those who live in Echo Village, but the portrait-less, random villagers have no residence in the village and you won't earn FP with them.

After the judges give their opinion on your design style, Dunhill with thank you and encourage you to participate in the next season's Gardening Tour. Then everybody leaves and you'll be presented with a monetary prize. The amount of gold you receive will be calculated by multiplying the space's Gardening Points with the number of judges that attended the garden show:

If you have over 1000 Gardening Points, Dunhill will come back and tell you that someone wants to buy your garden objects. You can then sell all of the items you placed on your Gardening Space for twice the price the items are worth! You won't sell the Gardening Space itself, but just the decorations that you've placed in its space.

Once the Gardening Tour is over, you will be returned to your house at 10:00 am.

Gardening Tour Example

Let's say the following objects are placed in a Gardening Space, as shown in the picture at the top of the page. There are four judges for this event:

Item NameIndividual GPSet BonusTheme Points
Arch Bridge0No+50 Eastern, +7 Water, +1 Unique, +1 Chic
Blue Flower Arch0Yes: w/ Red Flower Arch+5 Western, +3 Winter
Fire Extinguisher0No+5 Country, +1 Water, +4 Unique
Maiden With Shield0Yes: w/ Maiden with Spear+25 Oriental, +1 Animal, +3 Unique
Maiden With Spear0Yes: w/ Maiden with Shield+25 Oriental, +1 Animal, +3 Unique
Potted Blue Roses7No+2 Winter
Potted Cactuses10No+3 Oriental, +2 Unique
Potted Gentians7No+2 Winter
Potted Ginkgo Tree (x4)80No+20 Eastern, +8 Fall
Potted Hydrangeas7No+2 Summer
Potted Nadeshiko7No+2 Fall
Potted Red Roses7No+2 Summer
Red Flower Arch0Yes: w/ Blue Flower Arch+5 Western, +3 Summer
Red Pots0No+5 Oriental, +1 Water
Snowdrop Flowerbed15No+4 Winter
Sunflower Flowerbed15No+4 Summer
screen shot

The calculations for the Gardening Points will be:

95 GP (Base) + 155 GP (Individual) + 200 GP (Sets) + 600 GP (Themes) = 1050 Gardening Points. With four judges, the prize for the Gardening Tour is 4200 G. (1050 x 4 = 4200)

';