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[FantasticDorf]

One of the great many objectives of players of dwarf fortress is to exercise their role to shape the land, and hence i think that some rudimentary gardening additions would be extremely helpful to getting started rather than relying on cheaty work-arounds. So that dwarves while they might not be initially a fan of the outside world, can bring some color inside like any civilized race might.

Why should we implement planting before the additional requirements are put in for plants?

My main arguement is that although Toady has a lot of concurrent systems like temperature and the weather (which he covered in his PC gamer interview) the issues around irrigation, soil PH etc i feel are kind of unnecessary at this stage to the self styled industrial way that players attempt to shape their game world to suit their needs, such as diverting rivers draining magma seas and collapsing rock to a intended effect. And because the field of real world gardening can be very restrictive, i feel like a massive amount of these additonal realism features will restrict gardeners without touching the rest of the game and that it should be initially explored as a concept first for a small implemented side feature addition.


Gathering saplings, trimmings & seeds

A simple designation so that dwarves aren't usually tasked with collecting massive amounts of rottable plant material passively all the while, and instead can go around collecting miscellaneous industrially unusable seeds for planting into pot tools. Many seeds of which are purely incidentally filtered into your seed stockpiles by harvesting and consumption anyway by your dwarves.

It also can remove and reuse saplings for a later date to be planted elsewhere, making a more efficient use instead of paving over it with paths.

Garden Pots & Large Planting Pots

Two new tools for dwarves are the variation of garden & large planting pots made of ceramic material & metal, a alternative way of thinking about garden pots & large planting pots are that they are 'cages' for plants, plants put inside garden pots can have the garden pot removed but the plant remains within it, wheras unless the plant is a tree or large it has to be removed first.

Garden Pots - These handle plants and grasses, where they contain plants like herbs that grow naturally rather than intensively like they do on the farm to be collected by herbalists. In their natural intended state they can be buried in the ground (see 'plant the pot') to allow the plant to grow and be fed fertiliser on that spot or placed as a decoration to have the plant seeded in afterwards.

Large Garden Pots - Used for very dense plants (not yet implemented, thinking Titan-arum or potentially hostile giant variant plants for savage biomes) and for trees themselves, accepting saplings which later grow in to full trees when buried, which ideally is used for making orchards available vertical space.

• Fertiliser can be used on pots to speed growth, though it does not affect yield seasonally, which without more defined tree growth times can split the 10 year wait into five and continued use beyond that can adjust how it grows into the vertical space above it.

To actually plant the pot onto the ground you need a soil or muddied block, so the requirements remain mostly the same but the player has manual control to put plants into areas. Grass will not spread in cavernous conditions, and remain single tile examples and still be subject to the biome around it unless put into a muddied outdoors revealed cavern where it will spread to the adjacent space, fertilizer will accelerate its growth and spread until it is self dependent.

• In use of a practical application, this can be used to set up more efficient pasture spaces without collapsing dirt from aboveground, and cater to creatures with specific grazing requirements like pandas by especially inputting & fertilising bamboo to spread rapidly in a large confined space so that you may pasture the creatures over it easily.

Decorative purpose.

Garden & plant pots when placed as the object themselves virtually anywhere instead of rooted in the ground can be decorations that appeal to naturalistic needs and contribute to the room with the value of the plant products in it, while some dwarves may be uneasy with the prospect of having plants inside most are ambivalently interested nonetheless.

• Sunberries and valley herbs are very popular but rare examples of above-ground plants, and dwarves may be partial to having favourite plants if they have a particular need to hang around in nature. Underground plants will not disturb dwarves so much but tend to be generally common and under-valued

• Saplings inside large garden plots put in as decorations will not grow into real trees, but instead a unique kind of decorative bonsai tree that gives precisely 1 wood when harvested, but has its own moderate value. Dwarves who like that wood type will be appreciative of the bonsai. Including mini cavernous mushroom tree bonsai's.

A collection of thoughts that might brand me a elf-friend, but cover a important aspect of DF that few dwarves like to admit that despite hating nature, they really really like the taste of apple cider and other fruit and vegetable beers.