Thistledown Warren

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From the game's free bonsai garden

The Bonsai Almanac

Gran's bonsai garden grows every tree from its own seed over real days. Here are all 28 species, drawn by the game: from seed to 28 days, and through the four seasons.

These are the game's own reference sheets: each tree cared for, watered and lightly shaped, the way the close-up draws it.

Growing, day 1 to day 28

28

Through the year, at 20 days

In the game

Mrs. Fennimore's Nursery in the village sells seedlings into a seed tray, three of the exotic species each day, and the first bonsai bench. In the close-up you turn a tree, zoom, snip anywhere along a branch (two buds break behind a cut), pinch soft shoots, wire and bend branches, and water it. Care, Style and Pot hold feeding, leaf-cutting, moving, eight styles and repotting.

Mr. Wren judges a Bonsai Exhibition every season, villagers ask for trees, and your best one stands in the cottage alcove for visitors. It's all in the free game.

A bonsai sandbox, where you grow and shape a tree here on the web with the game's own growth rules, is planned next. The game's tree growth is a large piece of code to bring across, so it gets its own build.