A little gnome has moved into a cottage at the edge of the woods. Around it lies an old garden that nobody has looked after in years. The grass stands tall, brambles have swallowed the beds, and down in the overgrown pond lives Froggy, who still remembers how it all bloomed in Algot's day. Now it's the gnome's turn.
There are no fences here, and no plot to fill. The garden grows wherever you take it: along the brook, up the ridge and into the trees. And everything is made of real things in miniature, from the grain in the wood to the lichen on the stones and the moss between them.
Break new ground
Cut back the long grass with your sickle, weed the old beds and clear away stones and fallen branches. Nothing goes to waste. Weeds become compost and compost becomes soil. Branches become woven fences and brush piles, and stones become walls.
Under the brambles there are things waiting to be found: old seed packets, a rusty watering can, and a greenhouse that just needs mending.
Build as you go
Draw a path and it winds its own way across the ground. Draw a wall and it rises stone by stone, with grass creeping up around its foot. Weave fences from branches, plant hedges, lay decking and throw little bridges over the brook.
Build a shed, a barn or a sauna wherever you like, then step inside and make it home. Over time, moss and ivy settle on everything you build. Changed your mind? Reshape it, pull it down or simply undo.
Neighbours with fur, feathers and scales
Animals move in once they find a home. Igor the hedgehog settles into the brush pile, Olle the lizard suns himself on the stone wall and the great tits nest in the bird box. Herman the badger lives in the old oak, Mulle the mole tunnels beneath the root cellar, and Majken the mouse keeps a tiny house beyond the pond.
Each of them has wishes of their own, and more than one will have you round for fika. And Froggy has plenty to tell: about Algot, and about something buried beneath the old apple tree.
A whole year in the garden
Spring, summer, autumn and winter roll across the garden. Leaves turn and fall one by one, snow drifts against the walls and holds the gnome's footprints, and the pond freezes over. Morning mist settles in the hollows, fireflies glow on summer nights, and on a clear winter's night the northern lights may come out.
The year has its festivities too: a maypole for the frogs to dance round, a little Lucia procession, presents for every neighbour on Christmas Eve and fireworks over the pond.
And there's more
- Turn bowls on a treadle lathe and build your own furniture, piece by piece.
- Keep bees, lift out the frames and spin your own honey.
- Forge hinges, hooks and an axe from glowing iron in the smithy.
- Cook what you grow in the outdoor kitchen, and your friends drop by for supper.
- Plant three glowing beans, and a beanstalk climbs right up through the clouds.
- Ski round the croft, skate on the pond, swim and skim stones.
- Survival, where the pumpkin men come every night and the garden has to hold.
- Free build, with everything open from the start.
The Japanese dream
A garden of its own, far from the croft, on one of Algot's drawings. Tatami rooms and paper screens, raked gravel, ikebana, a tea ceremony with Herman, and a smithy where the gnome forges a sword.
On its way as a DLC.