When the Garden minigame is unlocked, you’re thrown into it without a lot of explanation about crossbreeding and new species. Since you only start with one seed, you’re missing out on many beneficial plants that can improve your game in numerous ways, from Golden Cookies to Grandma efficiency.
Read on to find out how you can grow new varieties of flowers and unlock every seed to maximize your CpS in Cookie Clicker.
How to Access the Garden
If you have a sugar lump and hit the one billion cookies mark, you can now access the minigame “Garden”. Go to Farm and level up with one sugar lump. This unlocks your own garden. But it isn’t just throwing seeds and farming them. It’s much more complex than that. You need to unlock seeds, fertilize them properly.
Cookie Clicker Garden Guide to Unlocking Every Seed
What are Seeds in Cookie Clicker?
Seeds are a component of the Garden minigame that you get by upgrading your farms. When you first upgrade the game, you only have a Baker’s Wheat seed. You can generate Meddleweed in the original garden from blank plots, too. However, every other seed comes from creating and harvesting mutated plants.
Harvesting Seeds
When your plant matures, you can harvest it to get seeds. However, each seed that you get is something that drops one time only. Once you have a seed, you have it permanently and can plant it in an empty tile multiple times.
When a mutated plant appears, and you haven’t collected the seed from that species yet, click on the tile it’s planted in to harvest it. As long as the plant is mature, it should drop a new seed to add to your collection. Hover over a plant in the garden plot to see what stage it’s in and other information.
Newly unlocked seeds will appear in the seed menu to the left of the garden plot.
Planting and Maturation
The garden grows in ticks, which vary depending on the soil you use. Every tick, the plants grow a random amount. They have to bud, sprout, bloom, and mature before they’re ready to be harvested. Make sure to only manually harvest your garden until you’ve unlocked Crumbspore and Brown Mold. If you use the Harvest All tool before that, you might kill the newly grown species and keep your seed collection from increasing.
Types of Seeds
There are 34 different seeds you can unlock, not including Baker’s Wheat. Each one has a different effect when it’s planted in the garden.
- Baker’s Wheat: Baker’s Wheat is the first seed you start with during the Garden minigame. Click to plant it right away so that it can begin to spawn mutations. Each Baker’s Wheat planted increases your CpS by 1 percent.
- Thumbcorn and Bakeberry : Each of these seeds can spawn from just Baker’s Wheat. Thumbcorn is the most likely mutation, while Bakeberry is much less likely. You can also generate Thumbcorn from two Cronerice. Thumbcorn boosts your clicked cookies by two percent for each click.
Bakeberry gives you an additional one percent CpS. If you harvest it at maturity, you get 30 minutes of extra CpS as well. They’re one of the best plants for increasing your overall cookie production.
- Cronerice : This can spawn from a mutation with a Baker’s Wheat and a Thumbcorn. Your total grandma output is increased by 3 percent when it’s planted.
- Gildmillet : Gildmillet spawns from a Thumbcorn and a Cronerice. It boosts your golden cookies, making them 1 percent more fruitful and making them last 0.1 percent longer.
- Ordinary Clover and Golden Clover : Both clover varieties spawn from the combination of Baker’s Wheat and Gildmillet. However, having two or more Ordinary Clover in your garden can also help breed Golden Clover.
Ordinary Clover gives you a one percent higher chance to get a golden cookie, while Golden Glover increases the chance by three percent.
- Shimmerlily : This plant is created by crossing a Gildmillet and an Ordinary Clover. It affects your golden cookies, increasing the gains and frequency by one percent. It also boosts your random drop percentage by one percent.
- Elderwort : Elderwort spawns from a cross between Shimmerlily and Cronerice. You may also generate Elderwort with a Winklegill and a Cronerice. It gives a one percent boost to your Wrath Cookie gains and frequency while boosting your Grandmas’ productivity. It is immortal.
- Wardlichen: Wardlichen is a cross between White Mildew and Cronerice. You can also cross Keenmoss with Cronerice to spawn Wardlichen. With it, you get 2 percent fewer Wrath Cookies, but Wrinklers spawn 15 percent more slowly.
- Green Rot : Greet rot mutates from Ordinary Clover and White Mildew. With it, you get an additional one percent golden cookie chance, 0.5 percent duration of golden cookie effects, and a one percent boost to random drops.
- Ichorpuff : Ichorpuff comes from a mix of Elderwort and Crumbspore. It causes plants in a 3×3 grid to last longer, reducing their aging by half. However, they’re also only half as efficient. It’s suitable for people who aren’t constantly checking on their gardens.
- Meddleweed : Meddleweed spawns in an empty plot in your garden. It is the basis of all the molds and fungal plants. It isn’t a mutation. It can cover and destroy nearby plants. You need it to spawn specific mutations, but it doesn’t offer much utility other than that.
- Brown Mold : Brown Mold can spawn off of White Mildew. You can also get it by harvesting Meddleweed. It has the opposite effect and reduces your CpS by 1 percent. It helps get other mutations but doesn’t have a positive benefit overall.
- Crumbspore : Like Brown Mold, Crumbspre can spawn when you harvest Meddleweed. It can cover and stop your nearby plants from growing. When planted, it can explode into additional CpS for up to a minute at the end of its maturity.
- Keenmoss : Keenmoss mutates when you cross a Green Rot and a Brown Mold. It boosts your random drops by three percent.
- Chocoroot : Chocoroot spawns from a mix of Brown Mold and Baker’s Wheat. With it, you gain one percent extra CpS. You can also harvest it at maturity for an additional three minutes of CpS.
- White Mildew : White Mildew can spawn from Brown Mold and doesn’t require another plant to appear as a mutation. It can also create Brown Mold. When White Mildew is planted, your CpS is increased by one percent.
- Wrinklegill : Wrinklegill spawns from a combination of Crumbspore and Brown Mold. It affects Wrinklers, making them spawn two percent faster and digest one percent more.
- Glovemorel : Thumbcorn and Crumbspore can create Glovemorel when they’re planted near each other. With it, you get an additional four percent cookies for every click, your cursors are one percent more efficient, but you lose one percent of your overall CpS.
- Drowsyfern : Drowsyfern can appear as a mutation if you cross Chocoroot and Keenmoss. It takes away 10 percent of your golden cookie chance and 5 percent of your cookies-per-click. However, it boosts your CpS by 3 percent.
- Doughshroom : Doughshroom is a mutation of Crumbspore and doesn’t require any other plants to appear. At the end of its life, it can generate up to five minutes of CpS. It can also grow over other nearby plants.
- Queenbeet, Duketater, Juicy Queenbeat : Queenbeat grows from a combination of Bakeberry and Chorocroot. It can mutate into Duketater or Juicy Queenbeet.
You should plant 8 Queenbeats to generate a Juicy Queenbeat. Juicy Queenbeats reduce CpS by ten percent and make plants in a 3×3 grid 20 percent less efficient but give you a sugar lump if you harvest them at maturity.
Duketaters on the other hand, can grow from having 2 Queenbeats in the same plot. Duketaters give you two hours of CpS when harvested at maturity.
Queenbeets increase your golden cookie effect timer by 0.3 percent, reduce your CpS by 2 percent, and if you harvest them at maturity, you get an extra hour of CpS.- Shriekbulb : Shriekbulbs can spawn from crossing a variety of plants, including:
- One Wrinklegill and one Elderwort
- Five Elderwort
- 4 Doughshrooms
- 5 Queenbeats
- 3 Duketatersz
The Duketater mutation is the most likely one to generate a Shriekbulb. However, many players trying to grow a Shriekbulb choose to plant Elderwort instead because it is immortal. Shriekbulbs subtract two percent of your CpS and make plants in a 3×3 grid five percent less efficient.
- White Chocoroot and Nurse Tulip : White Chocoroot is a mutation of White Mildew and Chocoroot. If you plant it, it alone can spawn a Nurse Tulip. A White Chocoroot gives you an additional one percent golden cookie gains, and harvesting at maturity gives you three extra minutes of CpS.
- Tidygrass : Tidygrass appears from a cross between Baker’s Wheat and White Chocoroot. It makes sure that the tiles in a 5×5 area around the plant don’t develop fungus or weeds.
- Fool’s Bolete : Fool’s Bolete results from a cross between Doughshroom and Green Rot. It takes away five percent of your golden cookie gains, two percent of golden cookie duration, and two percent of the golden cookie effect duration. However, golden cookies have an additional two percent chance to appear.
- Everdaisy : Everydaisy has a slight chance to appear if you cross three Tidygrass with 3 Elderwort. It makes sure that tiles in a 3×3 area don’t develop weeds or fungus. Though it covers a smaller size than Tidygrass, it is immortal, making it more beneficial in specific garden setups.
- Whiskerbloom : Whiskerbloom can appear when you plant a Shimmerlily and a White Chocoroot in the same garden. It boosts your milk effects by 0.2 percent. If you’re planting Whiskerbloom to increase your Kitten Upgrade effects, consider using clay soil to keep them mature for longer once they’re ripe.
- Chimerose : Chimerose grows from a cross of Whiskerbloom and Shimmerlily. It affects your reindeer efficiency, giving you an extra one percent in both gains and frequency.
- Nursetulip : Crossing two Whiskerblooms is the way to generate a Nursetulip. While it does take away two percent of your CpS, it also makes the plants in a 3×3 grid 20 percent more efficient.
- Cheapcap : Cheapcap comes from a cross between Crumbspore and Shimmerlily. It makes your buildings and upgrades 0.2 percent cheaper.
Garden Soil
One way to increase the growth of your plants and get mutations more quickly is to use different soils. There are a few different ones to choose from.
- Dirt : Dirt is the base soil that comes with the game as soon as it’s unlocked. Each tick of your plots takes five minutes, and it doesn’t change any of the base rates.
- Fertilizer : Fertilizer speeds up your ticks, making them only take three minutes each. There’s a 20 percent boost to growth at the cost of 25 percent of your efficiency.
- Clay: Clay is the next available planting medium. It slows your ticks so that they take fifteen minutes each but boosts your efficiency by 25 percent.
- Pebbles : Pebbles return your ticket to five minutes, reduce your growth by 90 percent and reduce your effectiveness by 75 percent. However, you get a 35 percent chance to harvest seeds automatically when your plants are dying. This is great for a player who doesn’t have time to micromanage their garden and harvest seeds. It can help you collect seeds while you’re away from the computer.
- Wood Chips : Wood Chips are perfect for players who are chasing mutations. They cause plants to spread and mutate three times more quickly while reducing the growth by 90 percent and the effectiveness by 75 percent. They have five-minute ticks.
Garden and Seed Strategies
As you work to get more mutations and discover new seeds, remember to create a strategy. You don’t want your quest for new varieties to hold back your overall Cookie Clicker advancement. You can do several things to increase your chances of getting the mutations you like while maintaining a high CpS.
1. Farms and Upgrades
To get the most mutations, you need as many plot spaces as possible. Having access to a variety of soil types is also essential. Prioritize your sugar lumps to upgrade the Garden minigame early to increase the size of your plot. Sugar lumps are a slow-growing resource, so it might take some time to have enough to reach the maximum plot size of 6×6 at level nine.
Soil types are unlocked with the number of farms you have. Focus on getting 200 farms before you start playing the Garden minigame. That way, you can use the different soils to increase your growth rate, raise the mutation rate, or keep plants mature for longer.
littOne way that players work toward getting more mutations quickly is to use Fertilizer while plants are growing to help them mature more quickly. Once they’re grown, switch to Wood Chips. Since Wood Chips increase the mutation rate of plants, you’re more likely to get varieties that you haven’t seen before. You can change the soil type every ten minutes.
2. Plant Pricing
It might seem appealing to purchase plants as quickly as you can so that you can generate mutations. However, this can harm your CpS and your overall game progression.
Never purchase a lot of plants when you have a CpS bonus going. This will increase the cost of each plant. In the same token, consider focusing on planting when a Wrath Cookie or other effect reduces your CpS. It may help you get the same mutations with less CpS loss on your part.
3. Sacrifice Garden
Once you’ve unlocked all the seeds, it might seem counterintuitive to get rid of them and start from scratch. However, the Sacrifice Garden option gives you an achievement to help you gather milk more quickly and boosts your future garden production. The opportunity to do this will not appear until you have all the seeds unlocked.
4. Planting Patterns
Picture the 6×6 garden grid. Consider each box on the left lettered from A to F. The boxes on top would be labeled 1 to 6.
Plant one of the varieties required for the mutation in A2, A5, C5, D2, F2, and F5. Plant another in B2, B5, E2, and E5. You should end up with two cross shapes and two lines. There will be plenty of open squares for mutations and other plants to grow.
If you’re trying to get mutations from a plant that only requires a single variety to mutate, plant in A2, B2, C2, E2, F2, A5, B5, C5, E5, and F5.
This setup should work for most plant varieties. However, Everdaisy, Juicy Queenbeat, and Shriekbulb require a slightly different design.
To grow a Shriekbulb, fill every other row with either Elderwort or Duke Tater plants.
To grow Everdaisy, fill an entire row with Tidygrass. Leave the next row empty. Fill the next row with Elderwort. Leave the next row empty. Fill the next row with Tidygrass. Leave the final row empty.
To grow Juicy Queenbeats, fill the entire first, third, fourth, and sixth columns with Queenbeats. Also, plant Queenbeats in A2, C2, D2, F2, A5, C5, D5, and F5.
7. Quick Planting
Hold down shift when you select a seed to plant it multiple times in different plots. If you don’t, you’ll have to click it to choose it before each plot you plant it in.
Unlocking all the seeds in the Garden Minigame of Cookie Clicker can give you substantial CpS gains, help you get more golden cookies, or even boost your passive effects. Remember that your garden plots will grow as you continue to upgrade your Farms, so save your Sugar Lumps to help make more space for more mutations.
Just don’t use Sacrifice Garden until you’re ready to lose all your seeds and start from scratch — even though you’ll gain a lot of Sugar Lumps for your trouble.
