Growing

The process of **growing** plants is what Viridi is all about. It's a relaxing activity that occurs slowly over time, where you invest as much or as little time as you want in the creation and upkeep of your little garden in a pot. It's not difficult, and it's not complicated, but it does require patience. Below you will find information on how to get started and then maintain your plants over the long term. If unsure what a particular option actually does, check the tooltip in the upper right corner of the screen.

## Ready to Begin

When you first begin playing Viridi -- and again with each new environment you purchase -- you'll be required to go through a few steps to get your pot ready to do some growing. You'll choose what you want it to look like and then decide what group of free plants you want to go in it.

### Pick a Pot

There are a total of **ten** pots to choose from in the game, and none has any advantage over another. Your choice will be purely aesthetic. Pick the pot whose looks best fits your personality or what you hope to achieve over time.

### Pick a Starter Group

After you choose a pot in which to place your first batch of plants, you'll need to select a group of starting plants from among three choices. Each selection includes **ten** total plants; only the particular mix changes between each option, and all ten plants will already be in the soil after you make your decision. Each group includes one large plant (Aloe Vera, Aloe 'Blue Elf', or Agave 'Blue Glow') and a mix of smaller plants.

primus
* Aeonium
* Aloe vera
* Echeveria glauca
* Pachyphytum fittkaui

prasinus
* Aloe 'Blue Elf'
* Pachyphytum glutinicaule
* Pachyphytum hookeri
* Sempervivum

pallidus
* Agave 'Blue Glow'
* Echeveria 'Lola'
* Kalanchoe rotundifolia
* Sedum pachyphyllum

## Maintaining Your Plants

Below are the tasks necessary to help your plants grow big and strong. You'll want to check on your plants at least once a day, but two or three times is even more ideal.

### Removing Weeds

One act of simple maintenance that you'll need to do every time to play the game is to remove weeds from each of your pots. Weeds will appear over time, growing in between the succulent plants that you are raising. They resemble blades of grass, and are able to be plucked out of the soil by clicking on them.

###  Watering Your Plants

Plants also need to be watered on a near-daily basis in order to stay hydrated. This can be done by selecting an individual plant in the pot and clicking the spray bottle icon you'll see on the bottom-right of the screen after doing so.

If you let them go too long, they'll shrivel up due to dehydration; if you water them too often, they'll become overwatered and may die. You can determine the state of a plant by selecting it and looking at the text under its name. The scale to go by is:

* **Parched** - it has been too long since you watered the plant and it has shrivelled and browned, but can recover with a spritz or two of water.
* **Thirsty** - the plant needs some water to be fully vibrant and grow at its maximum rate.
* **Sated** - the plant has been watered the ideal amount, and will grow as fast as it can!
* **Overwatered** - you have given the plant more water than it needs, but over time it will go back down without much harm, though it will grow more slowly until then.
* **Waterlogged** - an excessive amount of water has been given to the plant and, after a while, it may either die from overwatering or return to a simply **Overwatered** state.

If a plant dies - indicated by the text **Waterlogged (Dead)** and a brown, shrivelled appearance - see the section on throwing plants to the garden, and maybe plant a new one!

### Singing to Your Plants

Though it is not required for your plants to grow, singing to them can help them reach maturity faster than without it. You can do this by selecting an individual plant and then zooming in on it; after a few seconds some lines will appear on the screen and musical notes will begin to play.

As you sing to your plant, its "happiness" will change over the following scale, from "worst" to "best":

* **Vibrant**
* **Vital**
* **Vivacious**

## Life Cycle

Plants begin their life in the pot as seedlings, and this is just stage one of an entire lifetime in your care. A master gardener's work is never done.

### Reaching Maturity

Plants that have been properly taken care of as described above will eventually (after a week or two) reach maturity. This means that they have reached their full, normal size as plants and will not continue to get any larger. This does not mean that you are done taking care of them however, as they will continue to need care in the form of watering and weed picking indefinitely. Most plants are also able to continue on and eventually sprout one or more flowers, as described below.

### FlowerIng

After a plant has been fully mature for some time (another few weeks) and continued to receive proper care, it will eventually sprout a flower. This will make the plant more beautiful, but it only lasts for a short amount of time (a few days) since meant to be temporary just as it would be in real life. Once a plant is done flowering, it will typically go back to its mature state if it continues to be cared for correctly.

Out of the twenty-three available species of plants, only three do not flower: **Aeonium**, **Agave 'Blue Glow'**, and **Agave macroacantha**.

###  Throwing Plants to the Garden

If at any time you decide you want to remove a plant from one of your pots, simply click on it and choose the icon in the lower left corner of the screen to pull it out of the soil and throw it away. This is called throwing a plant "to the garden," with the idea being that it's not gone forever, it has simply been given back to nature.

Once you have made this decision you cannot get that plant back no matter what, so choose carefully. The game will make you click a button at least three times before this action is complete, so it should be difficult to throw something away accidentally.

Plants which have reached maturity can be thrown away as progress towards one of four achievements related to this action. They do not need to have flowered, only reached maturity.

## Additional Information

###  Vacation Mode

In the event that you plan to be away from the game for longer than a few days, the game includes an option called "Vacation Mode." This suspends all activity that would normally happen while you are away, as if time itself were frozen in your absence. This can be activated by visiting the first screen and choosing the calendar icon in the upper right corner of the screen.

When you next return to playing the game, Vacation Mode is deactivated automatically.

### The Snail

When you enter the game there will be a snail that doesn't affect anything. If you spray it the subtitle below will change from "Wow cute" to "wet". You can also sing to the snail and the subtitle will change to "excited" or "soothed". You can move the snail or throw it in the garden but each time you open the game it will still be there.