The ability to talk to plants seems overpowered. You can quickly bring a neglected plant from zero max health. I think it may be okay if a plantman does it, but not a normal person with full gardening skill.

I think it's a must for plantsims. I don't mind it for regular sims with a full badge, but I do wish the Gardening badge was a little harder to earn. I made several new families each with 5x5 gardens and all of them had gold badges within 30 sim days. That's counting the no-grow days during winter as well. Compared to some of the other badges (I'm looking at you, Register!) it seems extremely easy to reach gold in a short amount of time.

A lot of people talk to their plants in real life. I don't have any problems with that. My late mother-in-law certainly did, and her plants were flourishing. I also had a neighbour who would tell his plants in a rather strict voice to grow ("Grow, you buggars, grow!) and they - well, grew. Shrugs.

If I talk to mine, they leap out of their pots and try to throttle themselves with their roots.

Yes, I think the gardening badge should be a little harder to get! Compared to other badges, it seems easy.

Slightly off-topic, but do you know about Pescado's smartercashier available on MATY (More Awesome than You)?

There is one badge that is earned even faster. If you send an employee to Sell, he will earn badge all the time not just while actively selling.

With my mod I only added a minimal amount of gardening skill to normal tasks, that can be had without dithering between sometimes adding and sometimes not. I think this is a problem with all the skills if you have infinite or very long life. They get maxed. They expected you to grow old in 30 days. Maybe skills need an enthusiasm-like mechanic where they go down. How many days does it take to max cashier? I know it is slow but it should come before 30.

I'm now adding automatic talking for my plantwomen to show off their abilities and gold badge.

I was aware of it once but clearly it didn't... register. (Apologies for the terrible pun but I couldn't resist.) Thank you for the reminder, that will making running my OFB businesses so much easier.

It's a therapeutic way to deal with stress. I've also heard that talking to your plants somehow makes them grow bigger... but that's just what I've heard. I have no science to back that up.

I play mine Plantasia- mostly because I love it (love me some Moog) but also because it's the only thing keeping them alive!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?li...oIaE6rss4wqfES8

I utilize it and am thankful it exists.

It's not overpowered because it takes so long. I only do it when the fruit is ready to harvest but still pale. It certainly isn't necessary - you can get a whole garden full of thriving plants just by staying on top of the maintenance - but it's handy once in awhile.

Mom-in-law knew every plant in garden's botanical name, and she had hundreds, if not thousands. She also never seemed stressed

I can recognize the benefit it brings to the person.

With the amount of spraying we need to do on the few beds, Jason Greenman could quite realistically become a plantman even with the broken token if I sent him to work the garden. Maybe the balance is ok without a fix. I didn't sell off any stuff on entry, and therefore we couldn't afford any ladybug houses. I like how everything works out now with smart gardener.

We hardly ever need to sleep or eat at all, like with snapdragons, except those are harder to come by.

Midgethetree has a mod that restricts the ability only to plantsims and fairies, which is what I use.