The Garden Game Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• The Grass Is Always Greener Rules
  • Before You Start
  • How You Play
  • Planting
  • Megaphones
  • How You Score
• The Alternative Rules

Components

• A green card box, fastened with a velcro tab, which opens out flat to form a rectangular playing board. The board has a playing track running around its edge, four gardens with slots in which to plant cards, and in the centre four spaces for the packs of cards.
• 4 packs of cards:
  • Seed Cupboard: 65 cards, in 4 suits of 16 (Herb Garden, Fruit Garden, Flower Garden, Kitchen Garden) plus one emergency card.
  • Compost Heap: 32 cards.
  • Acts of God: 24 cards.
  • Weather Report: 8 cards.
• 4 metal garden tool markers: watering can, flower pot, fork and roller.
• 4 red wooden megaphone markers.
• 2 green wooden dice.

The Grass Is Always Greener Rules

The object of the game is to plant a complete garden with plants that do best together. The players should decide in advance how many plants constitute a complete garden; you can go for 16, 20 or 24 plants, depending on how much time you have to spend. The game ends when a player completes a garden to the prearranged number, but it is won on points, so the scores at the end of the game decide the winner.

Before You Start

1. Arrange the board so that each garden faces a different player.

2. Shuffle the four packs of cards thoroughly and place them in their appropriate spots.

3. Place the four megaphones in the four Garden Gates.

   Very important: the Garden Gates either side of the centre fold, where the box hinges, should only be counted as one each: the East and West Gates. When passing these Gates, they count as one move, not two.

4. Place the four garden tools in the Garden Centre marked Go.

5. Deal 11 Seed Packet cards to each player, and return the rest of the seeds to the Seed Cupboard.

6. Sort your hand into suits, and then into numerical sequence. There are four suits: the Flower Garden (dark green border), the Fruit Garden (olive green border), the Kitchen Garden (brown border) and the Wild Garden (pale green border). Each suit contains 16 cards, and each card has a number in the top left corner. Conceal your cards.

7. Throw dice to see who starts, choose your emblems, and away you go!

How You Play

The players take turns to throw the dice and proceed around the board, winning and losing seeds, which they take from and replace in the Seed Cupboard. If the Seed Cupboard runs out of seeds, or there are only 2 left and you have been told to take 3, you take your seeds from the neighbour on your right, but you continue to put lost seeds and plants back into the Seed Cupboard.

• If you land on the Compost Heap, take a Compost card.

• Acts of God require an Act of God card.

• If you visit the Meteorological Office, you must take a Weather Report.

  Note in the source: "Let us warn you that the Weather Reports can be devastating; they prove too much for some gardeners and we have therefore provided an alternative label - Back Door into the Gardens and the emergency Telephone, so that those who get sick of bad weather can enjoy a little escapism... and if you weaken enough to use this label, you should also remove the Weather Report Cards from play before you start."

• If you have to go to Hospital and miss a turn, you should go straight to Hospital and place your emblem in the corner marked In-Patients. If you land in Hospital as you go round the board, you may remain in the Out-Patients department and move straight on the next turn.

• When you go past the Garden Gate marked Go, you may take two extra seed packets; when you land on it, you may take four packets. For the opposite Garden Centre, it is one packet when passing and two if visiting.

• If you are told to lose Plants and there is nothing planted in the furrow of your garden, you lose nothing. Likewise, if you are told to lose Seeds and you have none, you lose nothing.

• If you throw a double, have an extra turn, but only once.

• If you missed a turn in Hospital, there is one small advantage: you are out of reach of the megaphones.

• If you land on Compulsory Takeover and there is nothing planted in your garden, you lose nothing, but you still take an Act of God card.

• If you are told to lose half your plants or seeds, and you have an odd number, you get the benefit of the doubt; for example, if you have seven plants, you only lose three.

Planting

• When you place your seed packets in the furrow of your garden, they become plants. Plants and seeds are subject to different calamities, so the distinction should be clearly understood from the start.
• You may only plant your seeds when you land in a Garden Gate.
• The seeds you plant must be in numerical sequence of at least two from the same suit (for instance, no. 7 and 8 of Flowers, or 3, 4 and 5 of Fruit).
• In any one planting session you should plant at least two and not more than ten cards at a time.
• You should aim to collect one complete suit, as this automatically doubles your score. Sequences from other suits, as long as they are good companions, will not only add to your score but will also prevent other players from collecting a complete suit.
• In subsequent plantings, you may add to existing sequences, but you may not rearrange your established garden unless you wish to miss a turn while you do so. You must therefore plan your garden layout carefully from the start.
• If you land in the Gates but are unable to plant due to lack of card sequences, two other options are open to you:
  • a. If you have no pairs in any suit, you may take a Seed Packet.
  • b. Provided you have any pair of a given suit in your hand, not necessarily in sequence, you may pick up the megaphone, call across to one other player of your choice and ask for all the seeds they have from that particular suit. If they have some, they must hand them all over. If not, they may then ask you for their favourite suit, and if you have any, you must hand them all over.

Megaphones

Using the megaphone can be rewarding, but it is also risky. You may end up giving instead of receiving, and what is more, you have revealed your specialities to the two players who were not involved in the conversation, thus laying yourselves open to a shout from them later on. Requests via the megaphones only apply to seeds in your hand. When seeds are planted in your garden, they become safe from other gardeners, but of course vulnerable to aphids, Acts of God and so on. The timing of how big you allow your hand to become before planting is therefore crucial, and the sensible gardener will not allow the temptations of other people's seed collections to deter him too often from planting his own garden.

How You Score

• The first person to complete their garden to the prearranged number gets a bonus of 100 points.
• Sequence: twos score 20; threes score 30; fours 40, and so on.
• A complete suit doubles your overall score.
• Each seed card has its own face value of 5 points unless otherwise stated, and can also score the bonus as marked, when planted beside a friend. If planted beside an enemy, neither card scores.

The Alternative Rules

The object of the game is the same as in Grass Is Always Greener, that is, to complete a garden to the prearranged number. The differences are as follows:

• Do not deal out seeds at the beginning. Instead, each player takes 4 Seed Packets from the Seed Cupboard to start them off.
• No numerical sequences: you may plant any seeds you wish, provided they are good companions, and they must be planted either beside, behind or in front of each other to score the bonus. Sequences are desirable but not essential.
• You may plant only up to 6 plants at a time.
• No megaphones, so you cannot acquire another player's seeds.
• If you lose all your plants and seeds, don't despair: just keep going round until you get some more.
• Scoring is the same as in the first game.