For the last six months or so I have been playing FarmVille on Facebook. For some of those hours I could have been in the garden, but it’s been a long cold winter and I’m not really in the mood to get out there and get stuck in just yet. Hopefully spring is just around the corner, but the weather forecast for this week is very variable.

Initially I had fun laying my virtual farm out along permaculture principles, with a forest garden, homes for wildlife and a focus on renewable energy and transport. Then the farm got bigger, the goals of the game changed to focus on sowing and harvesting crops and I was in danger of getting RSI, so I succumbed and bought some machinery. My little virtual world is no longer carbon neutral :(

But the range of trees and crops has expanded beyond belief and I’m fascinated by them – which would it be possible to grow in the real world? FarmVille has a special climate, where even the snow (and yes, there was snow) doesn’t damage your crops or slow down their maturity. Greenhouses are for decoration only.

Many of the crops are permanent residents, and you can choose to plant according to your whims. But to keep things interesting the FarmVille wizards add limited edition themes, and one of the current ones is for Chinese New Year. It comes complete with a special Mandarin tree and two new crops – bamboo and lotus. If you buy a tree it’s with you until you sell it, but the new crops will disappear in 4 days time.

Mandarin

I actually already have some Mandarins here in the Real World. They’re my mandarin seedlings, some of which were polyembryonic and likely to mature in plants with tasty fruits. It’s going to take a few years, though. In the meantime the seedlings are sitting on the windowsill and soaking up what winter sunshine there is. Whether I will be able to keep them all to maturity is another questions – there are quite a few and I couldn’t keep track of which ones were polyembryonic (my report card would say “must try harder”).

It’s interesting that the Mandarin only gets an edibility rating of 2 from PFAF. Possibly it’s because only the fruit is edible, so much of the year the tree is not contributing to the larder, but the flowers are also pretty and scented so it does have more than one use. Like most citrus, the Mandarin orange is a tender plant that has to be kept away from frost, so in the UK it is a conservatory plant in the winter.

East of Eden has a nice guide to keeping citrus plants healthy, and if you want to buy a Mandarin orange (aka satsuma or clementine) plant rather than raise seedlings they are available (the Citrus Centre certainly has some). Apparently citrus plants can be turned into bonsai specimens, which might be an interesting project if you grow your own seedlings.

Lotus

You’ll need a pond (probably a big one) to grow Lotus, but it has a long and interesting history and learning more about it is on my To Do list. Apparently it has been cultivated widely in Asia for centuries; here in the UK it became a popular ornamental plant during the gardening craze about 100 years ago when plant hunters made fortunes introducing new plants.

PFAF gives the Lotus an edibility rating of 4 (out of 5) and it has its own page on the beautiful Plant Cultures site. FarmVille relegates it to an ornamental Flower crop.

According to PFAF, most forms are not hardy in the UK and would have to be lifted and stored in frost-free place during the autumn (something that might be tricky since they resent root disturbance). Their beauty and fragrance, plus their potential food value, might make the effort worthwhile. In warmer climates they can become invasive.

Bamboo

Back when I had my nutbag idea about a container hedge, I considered trying bamboos in containers. I still might – I have a copy of Hardy Bamboos: Taming the Dragon that I must finish reading to see which bamboo varieties would be most suitable for the location and climate.

Here in the UK bamboo has two principle uses – you can eat the shoots and grow your own plant supports (in fact, there was a lovely article in a recent issue of the Eden Project magazine about a farmer who made a living during WW2 (iirc) by growing bamboo in Cornwall for Dig for Victory gardeners to use as plant supports, as imports were curtailed).

The PFAF database contains a lot of bamboo species, some of which even get an edibility rating of 5/5.

Of course, a more traditional plant to grow for supports would be willow; Victoriana Nursery Gardens offers Salix viminalis, which makes a good wind break and is suitable for coppicing and for basketwork.

It has taken a few years but I think I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that there are far too many wonderful plants in the world for me to be able to grow them all (even if I moved to a warmer climate!), let alone for me to fit in the garden in one growing season. FarmVille farmers might have problems transferring their new-found love of plants into the Real World because it glosses over all of the technical problems (climate, seasonality, pests, weeds and diseases) that can make gardening hard work. But if FarmVille can inspire a fascination with plants in even a small percentage of it’s millions of users, then it’s not entirely a waste of time ;)

If you’re on Facebook and would like to come and say hello, or become a Farmville neigbor then this is me.