Housing/Plant Storage

[RichardOCE]

I could ask this question over on UHall I think, but I respect the answers found here more

Anyway...after this weekend Im looking at ripping down a house, and starting again. Something designed to be a possible Plant vendor house. Maybe a cottage type design, all very rustic looking. I got a couple questions in regards to my plants:

1. When I pack up my current batch of plants, and put them into storage (bags, chests, whatever) their growth cycle stops right? Are they still susceptible (sp) to disease/fungus/bugs etc? Or do they basically go into total hybernation mode?

2. Does anyone have any pictures of plant pots out on display, when growing? Currently I have 50 pots, each on their own small table on the second story of my home. Easily accesible, in neat rows, and as they start to flower its looks awesome. Mainly I want the new place to be single story only (Im a little sick of two/three story places), so the plants would need to be displayed so that I can access each one easily, and it still looks nice.

Halp!

 

[eolsunder]

Yea ive seen a number of nice plant vendor houses about, ill try and run about and find some with pics.

If you don't really like multiple story houses, try making a house that is an OPEN multiple story house. Something not with multiple floors, but multiple levels, open tiers, hanging gardens, etc. This goes well expeciall with a plant house where you can have a open 2-3 level area with hanging vines, waterfalls, birds, et.

I don't like the growing plant area myself, i rather have a display area/vendor area, and then the area where you grow plants. A plant growing area is more suited to have everything in reach of you and your kegs and water, while a vendor display area should be open, easy to see and identify and buy from.

 

[eolsunder]

Here is a nice little legends plant house i like. nice vendor layout..

 

[Tina Small]

I stack the pots 3 or 4 deep and leave them that way until the full-size plant appears. Then I spread the full-size plants out and just lock them down to the floor. Usually by the time they hit that stage, I have other plants that are finished making seeds, so there's floor space to put them out. I also have a stack of potion kegs located in the middle of the growing area and carry a pitcher or two in the gardner character's backpack. There's always a water trough or two in the room as well.

On the day that the plant makes its eighth seed, I tend the plant as usual (water, potions) and then unlock it and put it in a secure container. I was so happy when I read one of Sarsmi's posts a year or so ago indicating you can store the entire mature plant versus having to store the individual seeds! So far I haven't had any stored mature plants die. They just continue to show the same information for water/potions as they did on the day they were stored.

 

[Serafi]

I have always used a character for gardening, instead of locking down the bowls in the house. That way I don`t really "need" to log on every day and tend to them, the client only checks the growth cycle when I log on with that character. I have nothing else in the inv but bags of plants, 8 in each bag and potion kegs.

I also depend heavily on UO Assists feature -> Use Once agent and the organizer agent. The first lets me select one bag and open the gump on each plant by using keyboard. Less clicking, less strain on wrist..

 

[Sarsmi]

I've always used spare characters too. It's great for when you forget to log in and then all your plants die (can't happen), great for saving on storage, and handy for shifting around plants and using special bags for special plants. I do regular backpacks with 4 bowls on top and 4 bowls on bottom evenly spaced, then do 4 or 5 bags, have kegs on each character and lotta water pitchers. Works very well. =)

 

[Melina Havelock]

I have some pics of my various garden shops, will try to get them uploaded and post them soon. Also, I have pics of other shops and houses I thought would make good garden shops. I'm sure I can come up with 3-4 ideas.

 

[Skylark SP]

My mass gardening operation was done on my roof. I had small wooden tables stacked 2 high around the entire perimeter, this let me stack 3 pots high. I had a chest with my potion kegs and water pitchers in the middle for easy access, and water troughs on each corner. The middle of the roof was decorated to be an outdoor kitchen and ruins. The plants on the tables not only looked nice, more like a greenhouse than a plant sweatshop, but it allowed me to care for them much easier. I had a stack of wooden chests, and inside them a series of colored backpacks. When my plants matured, I sorted them into the colored backpacks. A separate set of chest was kept for my seed stock plants. Because you can see at a glance the item count in the backpacks, it made it easier for me to keep track of how many I had of a particular color/kind. I kept the seeds on the parent plant for my seed stock until I needed to remove one to start a new plant, to save storage.

As long as your live plants are in SECURED containers and not LOCKED DOWN they will be in "stasis" and not continue to grow nor will disease advance.

For my Seed Bank which I ran in Zento, I had vendors divided by the plant types in alphabetical order, standing in a row on the porch, then colored backpacks on each vendor for the various colors of each variety. Running a seed bank and plant vendors is a very lockdown intensive operation, but I found my method helped shoppers quickly find the type & color plant they wanted, and helped me to stock & keep track of things easier.

-Skylark

 

[RichardOCE]

Heres what I have so far. Initally it was going to be a general purpose vendor shop, selling general goods, not specialised in anyway.

First floor: Individual vendor "shops". Fishing stuff (may change now after all my pre-chest loot wne towards tickets, heehee), Magery stuff like scrolls and rune books etc, Carp goods, and Tink/BS goods.

Second floor: Current garden set up. When laying it out, I quite liked it. Once the flowers started to appear it actually looks nice. Skylark: When you said you stacked yours up, is this what you meant, but with a second table on each?

Because Ive actually got a spare third floor that I havent decided what to do with you. I could redo the walls into halves like the floor below, leave the roof on and make the whole place an open air nursery.

Hmmm...so many decisions.

 

[Skylark SP]

Skylark: When you said you stacked yours up, is this what you meant, but with a second table on each?

Because Ive actually got a spare third floor that I havent decided what to do with you. I could redo the walls into halves like the floor below, leave the roof on and make the whole place an open air nursery.

Yes, I had 2 stacked tables, and a pot on the floor beneath the first table, a pot on the top of the first table (as you have in your pic), and a pot on top of the second table.

Here is a pic of the roof where I had my plant operation. However, this was done after I stopped mass growing plants, and had removed everything. The green strip around the perimeter is where I originally had the stacks of tables. It looked quite nice when there were a lot of full blooming stacks. It looked a bit like a lettuce hydoponics farm when the plants were in sprout mode. . The tables went along the entire west and north walls originally. I could have quite a few plants going at a time in that space. To care for them, I put potion kegs in my pack, and simply walked along the row tending to each plant stack. This was very helpful when I got interrupted, all I needed to do was remember the stack I left off at (often I locked a keg down in front of the stack when I had to stop). The tables block movement so I just had them along the perimeter for convenience, which I could do since the house is a 17X18.

-Skylark

 

[RichardOCE]

I think Im going to do the multi stacking, the way you have, and change the third floor to mimic the second. One question though, everytime you replaced a pot on the second tier, did you have to move it up with the deco tool? And likewise for the pot on the floor?

 

[Skylark SP]

I think Im going to do the multi stacking, the way you have, and change the third floor to mimic the second. One question though, everytime you replaced a pot on the second tier, did you have to move it up with the deco tool? And likewise for the pot on the floor?

No, I didn't have to use the deco tool to place pots on this arrangement. With only using 2 tables for 3 pots high, if you target correctly they just pop in place. However, I sometimes had problems with placing the pot on the bottom and middle tier when working with stacks between other stacks. For that reason, I tried to plant all my pot stacks at the same time, that way if I had to unlock a table and move it to place a new pot, then drop the table again, I was not having to fuss with that more than once every 2 weeks when the growth cycle completed and it was time for a new round for the whole stack.

To reduce the tedium, I made macros in the UO macro interface for saying "I wish to release this" and "I wish to lock this down" and it made short work of unlocking & releasing pots, and tables if necessary, come new planting time.

-Skylark

 

[RichardOCE]

Argh! So many options, I get home and log in, then sit there staring at my screen for hours on end, not actually doing anything. I got to bed frustrated with a head full of ideas and designs that I cant put into effect.

And then to make things worse I get here and read about/look at everyones great stuff and the cycle begins again!

*brain asplosion!*

I need a quick clarification in regards to plants though:

Plants growing on display as I have them will do a growth check everyday, regardless if I log in or not, right?

But plants placed in the backpack of a character will only ever do a growth check when that character logs in?

Cause now Im tossing up devoting house space to growing areas, or simply display areas. If anyone has more photos of exotic gardens, Id love to see them

 

[Sarsmi]

If you have plants locked down they will do a growth check every day even if you don't log in, to get a growth check on a plant on a character you have to log them in.

I have messed around here and there with various displays of growing plants over the years, and invariable I end up with a bunch of dead plants. It's a lot more pratical for those of us who are absent minded or who can't log in every day to keep plants on characters. Not to mention it is so storage friendly, and easy to organize!

Now what you could do (mahaha yet another idea) is set up a whole area that looks like a plant growing area, with bowls of dirt and bowls of salad or spinach or whatever those green ones are, then full grown deco mode plants, throw some water troughs around etc. You get the look without the fuss, and you can swap out the deco plants seasonally (orange and black for halloween, red, white and blue for 4th of july etc).

 

[Skylark SP]

Backpack gardening is a great option on a shard where you have the luxury of devoting say, 1 of 6 chars as a gardener. However, on Siege where my char is IT, the backpack gardening simply isn't practical unless I planned to never leave my house with her...also not practical.

@Sarsmi - I like the idea of using bowls of lettuce to simulate growing stages in a greenhouse deco setup.

Hmmm...I wonder if we could simulate different growth using things such as picked turnips and such for varying greenery heights.

*plots*

-Skylark

 

[Melina Havelock]

This was my Hanging Gardens shop. The first floor had all 17 plain plants vendors with their respective plant displayed next to them. Second floor was again all the plants arranged by type and each vendor had a box with the different colors on them. Third floor was resources, vines, deco and a limited selection of seeds.

I can't seem to find my images of the interior. Unfortunately, this design was good enough to be ripped off and entered into a contest with no credit to me, but not a good layout for growing. I had to do that in a house located behind the shop. Anyways, here's the shop exterior for anyone who wants inspired.

 

[RichardOCE]

Now that is a beautifully decorated house. One thing Ive never attempted to use in my housing designs is the water tiles and waterfalls, but looking at this design inspires me to try!

**EDIT**

17 vendors! Oh my goodness, what am I getting myself into. Anyone currently running a full time nursery vendor house? Id like to pop across to a few shards and check out vendor layouts, stock arrangements etc.

 

[Melina Havelock]

Thanks, Richard. I really like that house and actually did it in several tile styles until settling on that one. If I hadn't relocated it would still be up. Currently I have a modern/Japanese house. It's not quite finished, but I'll post a pic when it is.

PS, I actually had about 40 vendors when that shop was open!

 

[Melina Havelock]

Double Post, sorry.