Weed It and Reap: a Beginner's Guide to Neogardening

Neogardening is an ancient and complex ritual that evolved on Mystery Island hundreds of years ago. Ancient Techo Monks would labor for hours on tiny bonsai trees, pruning them into the exact idols of their mysterious and complex god, Potgarkechi. Unfortunately, they never caught on that each year on Mystery Island, during Gadsgadsbogen, every old tree randomly drops dead and new, differently shaped trees grow. This slowly drove the Ancient Techo Monks insane. Their descendants eventually moved away and evolved gills so they could start a new life on the ocean floor. But I digress. The Monks may have gone, but their traditional Neogardening techniques are still alive and kicking, especially the Tyrannian Kicking Vine.

Let’s start by assessing the pros and cons of where you live for Neogardening. You might live in Meridell (Beautiful, bountiful, rich soil vs. Armies of hungry Slorgs and occasional giant Blighting Curses from Lord Darigan) or the Haunted Woods (Edna willing to swap helpful gardening tips vs. a complete lack of sunlight and the biweekly Zombie Chomby infestations) or even on Kreludor. (Open space and 24-hour direct sunlight vs. being a freezing-cold and airless environment wherein no living thing can survive for ten minutes without a space heater) Wherever you are, there’s bound to be something you can grow. Just be creative! Try growing kelp in Maraqua! Or try not growing kelp in the Lost Desert! The possibilities are endless.

After you’ve decided what to grow in your My First Neogarden, your next shop should be the Neopia Central Gardening Store (Motto: Fighting a secret war against the Gnomes since 187 BN.) Run by an affable Blumaroo, this one-stop shop sadly retails only about a tenth of the actual plants in Neopia. And they’re all bedding plants. If you want to take the easy way out, you can purchase pre-potted plants here. But if you really want an authentic and beautiful Neogarden, you’ll have to grow the seeds yourself! So get out there into the world! Hunt down seeds! Here are some helpful ideas:

*When Illusen offers you yet another Cream Cookie, hit her and snatch the bags of seeds she keeps at her waist.

*Distract the Negg Fairie with a puppet show and extract seeds from her collection by means of a pair of large syringes.

*Whack the Brain Tree with a giant hammer, then collect the Neuron-shaped spores that will come crashing down.

After the full body casts come off, (allow six to eight weeks) you should take your battle-won seeds to your front yard, which will likely be a mass of tangled weeds and debris. If you decided earlier that you wanted the Weeds n’ Debris look, rejoice! Your Neogarden is now complete. Otherwise, you’re going to have to clear these pests up. The simplest way, of course, is to steal someone else’s Neohome. If that fails, resign yourself to releasing a swarm of angry Kaus to graze your lawn down. Once the dust has settled, you’re ready to start your planting!

Make no mistake: Neogardening is a tricky business. For example, if you plant the Glass Roses near the Rockberry Bush, bad things will happen. Same thing if you create an artful arrangement of Thornberries and Inflated Balloon Cluster Daises. But I have faith that you, an intelligent and patient reader, will have the intelligence and common sense to understand the positioning of each and every plant, even though you’ve never gardened before. Just carefully assess the aesthetic value of each plant. Contemplate its color patterns in contrast with those of the nearby plants. Consider every possible arrangement of each of the 62,000 plants that can grow in your area. Then, after the fruit of your 6+ hours of backbreaking labor has been achieved, watch as your Kougra accidentally swats the ‘Reset to Default’ button and every seed gets sucked into a corner. This is why I hate Kougras.

Your Neogarden should be watered at least twice a day. (If you live in Maraqua, your Neogarden should be blow-dryed at least twice a day.) Since watering is a lot of work, your best bet is to set up a complex sprinkling irrigation system. When that breaks, blast the yard with your Level 2 Bubble Beam until the yard is under approximately 72,000 kips of water. Don’t worry. It’ll soak in.

After anywhere from four days to twelve months, head outside to reap the fruits of your labor. Actually, there will be no fruits. And it really makes no difference how long you wait, because your seeds will never grow. But those of your neighbor will, yes, she’ll have a beautiful and harmonious symphony of plants despite the fact that she never watered, fertilized or spent hours applying the special Miracle-Glo that I spent hours carefully applying to every square centimeter of dirt in my lousy Tyrannian Neogarden. Stupid neighbor. Erm... sorry. As I was saying, it’s likely you did something wrong, because, well, let’s face it. You’re a terrible Neogardener. You’re so terrible, you’re taking advice from a hack humor columnist on how to improve your skills. Let’s be serious, shall we? There are three real ways to get a good Neogarden.

1. Pile every imaginable piece of lawn furniture, decoration, gnome, ornamental statuette and sandbox in a big heap in the middle of your garden. Then put up a sign saying it’s art. You’ll never have to water, unless you included a Sponge Grundo Birdbath.

2. Spread thick cement over the entire surface of your Neogarden. Construct cardboard cutouts of attractive Firs and Wreathies that you will place in strategic locations around the yard. At dawn the next day, you should have a teeming coniferous forest on your beautiful cement lawn. Feed them turkey twice a month.

3. First steal an earthmover from the excavation team at the Lost Desert Scroll Repository. Then in the middle of the night, sneak out and swap Neogardens with your green-thumbed neighbor. Deny all charges. Oh, and she’s installed any monogrammed brass plaques throughout her property you’ll either have to remove them, or, failing that, change your initials.

With these helpful tips, I’m sure you’ll be Neogardening your way to success, prosperity, and a Neogarden Spotlight Trophy. Until next time, faithful readers, I bid you adie- what? There’s no Neogarden Spotlight? Then why did I just write this article? Gah! Stupid Pk!

Writer’s Note: Thanks for reading. Many people have been wondering where I’ve been for the last eight months. I cannot lie to you. I was being held hostage in a secret underground lair by Lennies, Kadoaties, Grundos, more Lennies, joecool219, Frank Sloth, still more Lennies, certain TNT members, the entire Y7 Gormball Lineup, the Brain Tree and anyone else I’ve ever been so kind as to mention in one of my articles. We were playing games wherein they deprived me of food and water for weeks at a time. It’s all in my forthcoming autobiography.