Gem

*For other uses, see Diamond (disambiguation).*

### Cost to buy

Buying with real life currencies, finding it from Mystery Gift Boxes or piñatas (five or ten), daily Travel Log quests, watching ads, Arena reward

**Gems** are items in *Plants vs. Zombies 2* used for boosting plants in the seed selection screen, purchasing gem premium plants, sprouts, Piñatas for upgrading plants, and some plant costumes in the store. They can also be used as an alternative way to immediately grow plants and purchase extra pots in Zen Garden.

## How to obtain gems

* Purchasing them with real money (up to 1800)
* Watching an advertisement (3 gems per ad x 3 ads per day)
* Gem Jam Epic Quest (50 for 1, 60 for 2, another 50 for 3, and 75 for 4) (can be obtained 4 times in that order)
* Normal Daily Travel Log quests (6 for claiming 2 Arena freeplays, 5 for completing the day's Piñata Party, 2 for watching an advertisement, and 5 for obtaining 40 seed packets)
* Destroying the third layer of #caketank (1 gem)
* Defeating zombies during the Bonus Prize Phase in Penny's Pursuit

## Purchasable plants

The following plants are always in the store, all costing 100 gems:

* Squash
* Jalapeno
* Hypno-shroom
* Pea-nut
* Homing Thistle
* Hurrikale
* Fire Peashooter
* Lava Guava
* Shrinking Violet

The following plants are occasionally in the store, all costing 100 gems:

* Ghost Pepper
* Sweet Potato
* Sap-fling
* Electric Currant
* Aloe

The following plants are normally in-app purchases (iAPs), but have been put on sale for gems at one point:

* Torchwood (179 gems)
* Imitater (159 gems)
* Starfruit (179 gems)
* Dandelion (109 gems)

## Usage recommendations

It is highly advised to use gems to buy premium plants, as some of them are available for a limited time only and you will not be able to buy them after the deadline. When you have brought all current gem premium plants, you can try to get more gems to be able to unlock new pots in the Zen Garden or for future plants.

It is best not to spend gems in the Zen Garden, sprouts, nor for costumes, as you can simply set your device's clock ahead several hours or use Bernie the Bee to bypass waiting; sprouts are overpriced and are dropped commonly in-game, and costumes do nothing except visually decorating plants, making it worthless. In addition, most costumes can be unlocked in Piñata Parties and Mystery Gift Boxes, although some are store-exclusive.

If a gem premium plant is not available for a limited time, there is a chance that the price will lower and if you spend your gems early and the price lowers afterward, **your gems will not be refunded.** If you plan to not lose excessive amounts of gems, you can wait until the price of the plant in question gets cheaper.

Another good usage of gems is to get piñatas for upgrading plants. These can make even the weakest plants powerhouses and can make some of the hardest levels incredibly easy. Note that these can be bought anytime and that limited-time plants should be prioritized (unless you don't need them for your collection). Try and get to a decent league (such as Iron and above) in Arena, and then buy the '100' gem piñatas in the store, as the league bonuses are very helpful. Using gems to retain winning streaks in Arena are also recommended, as the rewards get better as the winning streak increases, and premium plant pinata can be obtained here. However, the price to retain increases by 10 gems with every loss, and there will be occasional 'dips' in the number of pinata or coins received.

Gems should be spent. Many players will save them up; this is correct, but remember - you can obtain 21 gems with ease each day, with a maximum of 27 if you have more than 4 hours of time. Many offers/plants will stay for a week, as they are likely to be featured in Arena. This way, 7 x 21 = 147 gems in the week, maximum 189. Plants won't cost more than 100, usually, so buying them will be quite easy. Also, you would probably have gotten some gem rewards from last week's Arena tournament. Therefore, you should spend gems, but save 10-30.

## Update history

* In the 2.1.1 update, gems were introduced along with the Far Future world. They are the replacement for diamonds.
* Around October 2014, gems can now be used to buy gem-premium or limited gem-premium plants.
* Starting from the 2.9.1 update onwards, gems can be used to buy sprouts.
	+ Also in the 2.9.1 update, the rate of gem drops was heavily decreased.
* In the 3.2.1 update, the rate of gem drops had been increased.
* In the 3.2.2 update on March 11, 2015, gems can now be used to buy costumes.
* In the 3.5.1 update, the rate of gem drops had been increased once more.
* In the 4.5.1 update, the rate of gem drops had been increased once again.
* In the 5.7.1 update, gems can now be used to buy piñatas for upgrading plants.
* In the 6.1.1 update, gems were not available to be dropped from zombies.
* In the update Penny's Pursuit takes place, gems can be obtained in the Zombot Battle

## Gallery

### *Plants vs. Zombies 2*

The boost plant buttonThe gems counterThe button to use gems to speed up the plantPay gems for an extra space in the Zen GardenThe "X" icon is actually gem (glitch can only be applied before getting the first sprout)Getting gems in a Piñata PartyBuying sprouts with gemsBuying Ghost Pepper with gemsThe gem icon for the counterA gem on its tab in the storeHD 20 gems icon on the storeHD 50 gems icon in the storeHD 110 gems icon in the storeHD 250 gems icon in the storeHD 700 gems icon in the storeAn advertisement for a gem saleSprite of gems with various items"Free Gems" button in 5.5.1 updateThe reward after watching an adAn advertisement showing how to earn gems through Travel Log1800 gems and 700 gems look the same in the storeAn ad for gems, as seen in the storeGem Bundles and Sun Piñatas in an advertisement for the 2nd day of Feastivus 2018Gems in the Starter Bundle advertisementGems in another Starter Bundle advertisementGem Bundles in an advertisement for the 4th day of Feastivus 2019Gems in an advertisement for the 12th day of Feastivus 2019 in the main menu
## Trivia

* Before the 2.1.1 update, gems did not exist and instead diamonds took their place with the value of 1000 coins. In the 2.1.1 update, gems replaced diamonds and no longer had the value of 1000 coins, now being used for other purposes. It still uses the diamond texture in the Chinese version.
	+ Gems however, still take a very similar form as the diamond.
* There used to be a glitch that almost every zombie in a level would drop a gem when killed instead of only a few zombies. This was fixed in 2.8.1 update.
* There is a rare glitch makes the player gets a ton of gems after watching a video to get gems. There is no reason for this.
* Gems in Plants vs. Zombies 2 look exactly like their *Plants vs. Zombies Heroes* counterparts, except for slight shading differences.
* In Summer Bundle, there is a glitch that the gem will be replaced by "X" if the player does not have any sprouts yet.
* All plants bought with these, including premium plants, are only shared for the current profile.
* 1800 gems and 700 gems look no different in the Store, despite 1800 being more than twice that of 700.
* The maximum amount of these the player can have is 2,147,483,647 (231 - 1). Attempting to reach past this amount will result in the gem counter turning into the minimum negative amount (-2,147,483,648). This is usually done by hacking.
	+ This happens because 2,147,483,647 (231 - 1) is the maximum value of signed 32-bit integer in computing, and attempting to reach a value higher than this results in an integer overflow.
* #caketank is the only zombie after a long time to drop a gem, but only after its 3rd degrade.

## See also

* Sprout
* Piñata
* Coins
* Diamond
* Gauntlet

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