Harvest Moon: It's a Wonderful Life, SE - Wild Plants and Flowers Guide

Wild plants and flowers are easily overlooked in Harvest Moon, A Wonderful Life but they do have some very important purposes. I’m not saying that flowers and herbs are going to change your game entirely but they are there for a reason, at the very least, if you’re not eating wild plants but instead drinking your milk or eating the fish you catch then you’re wasting a lot of money. Milk is a huge source of income and eating raw fish can make your character a bit sick; you know he’s sick because he’ll pull a pained face as he tries to choke down the bones and fish guts you just fed him. So, until you’ve established yourself a functioning kitchen where you can afford to cook meals for fun, you’ll be eating the various edible plants that the Valley has to offer.

Edible plants: 

	Season	Grows every	Price	How many grow:	Appearance:
Mugwort	Spring	1 day	15G	6
Royal Fern	Summer	1 day	15G	8
Hackberry	Fall	1 day	20G	7 (5 on 1st and 2nd of month)
Bracken	Fall	2 days	15G	6
Matsutake	Fall	2 days	25G	3
Toadstall	Fall	3 days	100G	2
Sorrel	Winter	3 days	20G	7

Locations:

Mugwort:

• Beside your house, behind the field
• Beside the locked shed on your farm
• Next to Cody’s studio
• Next to Kassey and Patrick’s house
• Inside Romana’s courtyard, left side as you enter
• Next to Vesta’s farm beside the road leading to Mineral Town
• On the leftside of the path going up to the Dig Site

Royal Fern:

• Next to the locked shed on your farm
• At the back of your farm where the weeds cover another field
• Next to Cody’s studio
• Next to Kassey and Patrick’s house
• Inside Romana’s courtyard, left side as you enter
• Next to Vesta’s farm beside the road leading to Mineral Town
• On the leftside of the path going up to the Dig Site
• Beside the Harvest Sprite’s house, where the spring is

Bracken:

• Near the locked shed on your farm
• At the back of your farm where the weeds cover another field
• To the left of the Harvest Sprite’s house
• Next to Kassey and Patrick’s house
• In the back right corner of Romana’s courtyard
• Next to Vesta’s farm beside the road leading to Mineral Town

Hackberry:

• At the back of your farm where the weeds cover another field
• To the far right of the previous hackberry
• Between the chicken coop and field
• On the right side of the Harvest Sprite’s house, where the spring is
• Next to the locked shed in Romana’s courtyard, near the back
• There are two hackberries by Cody’s studi

Toadstall

• Both are behind Vesta’s farm

Matsutake:

• Two of them grow by the Harvest Sprite’s house
• Beside Kassey and Patrick’s house

Sorrel:

• At the back of your farm where the weeds cover another field
• Next to the locked shed on your farm
• Next to Cody’s studio
• Next to Kassey and Patrick’s house
• Inside Romana’s courtyard, on the right side
• Next to Vesta’s farm beside the road leading to Mineral Town
• On the right side of the path leading up to the Dig Site

Wild plants as gifts:

Ok so not many people are thrilled to receive what is essentially a piece of rocket cross bred with a four leafed clover but there is however, one person who will be. Galen. Galen will give you the fishing pole in Chapter 2 if you’re good buddies with him and he’ll take around 7 or 8 gifts until he considers you a friend. Give Galen a Mugwort every day until he can’t keep his eyes off of you and that fishing pole may as well be yours.

Wild plants in recipes:

If you’ve read my guide on recipes and cooking, found here, then you may have noticed that quite a lot of meals incorporate mushrooms and herbs as ingredients. If you intend to cook later on in the game you may want to keep a small stock of wild plants in your fridge or inventory otherwise you may find yourself having to wait a couple of seasons in order to get what you need.

Several people like particular recipes, Galen, for example, likes marinade because that’s what Nina makes him. Flora and Gustafa both really like mushroom curry and Rock likes mushroom gratin. If you want to befriend any of those people with something a bit more special than a flower then you should save up your mushrooms. Or hey, maybe you just want to be nice, it’s your game not mine.

Flowers:

Flowers are very useful for hybridization as they provide different enhancements when merged with crop seeds. Three flowers have these abilities: the upseed flower, the happy lamp and the gemsoil flower. 

• Upseed flowers improve your crop seed grade by turning them automatically into S grade without the need for any fertilizer.  
• Happy lamps can make any crop seed work in any season so you can grow your tomatoes, yams or dhibes all year round.  
• Gemsoils allow your crops to grow in any soil regardless of how fertile it is. This is useful for later generation crops which can usually only be grown in the great field which you must buy separately.

Other flowers in the game are useful as gifts and, at the beginning of the game, a useful means of making money. Look at the chart below, you’ll see that when you start the game there are 36 flowers growing every 2 days. 36 flowers is a lot to pick in one day so you can break it up by doing some one day, some then next and so on. 18 goddess drops is 270G, that’s 1350G in Spring just from half the available flowers. Since these flowers grow together in large patches it’s surprisingly quick to pick them all. You can also save money by giving people toyflowers instead of goddess drops as gifts.

	Season:	Grows every:	Price:	How many grow:	Appearance:
Goddess drop	Spring	2 days	15G	18
Toyflower	Spring	2 days	10G	18
Happy lamp	Summer	4 days	15G	10
Mist moon	Summer	2 days	10G	20
Trick blue	Fall	2 days	10G	18 (11 on 1st)
Gemsoil	Fall	4 days	20G	10
Amorous	Winter	2 days	10G	19
Upseed	Winter	2 days	25G	2

Flowers as gifts:

A lot of people in general like flowers and they are a cheap and easy way to win favours and friends. If you have any left over flowers you’re wanting to get rid of, here’s a list of people who will gladly take them off your hands. Make sure to note though that Celia, Nami, Muffy and Lumina will interpret your gifts as a romantic gesture.

Vesta: All flowers
Ruby: All flower
Romana: All flowers
Chris: All flowers
Cody: All flowers
Kassey: All flowers
Patrick: All flowers
Lumina: All flowers
Muffy: All flowers
Celia: All flowers
Gustafa: All flowers
Rock: Toyflowers, Mist Moon
Nami: Trick blue
Griffin: Mist moon, trick blue
Mukumuku: All flowers (up to 5 daily)
Kate (arrives in Chapter 2): All flowers
Samantha(arrives in Chapter 2): All flowers