do I need the garden lamps? why are they so low to the ground? will my sim still be able to tend the plants (water ect) can I plant trees still?

You don't -have- to put in garden lamps, but it makes the garden look nice and pretty. It's really just for visual effect... Your sims (in Sims 2) don't really care that it's dark.

They shouldn't interfere with your sims being able to get around at all or do anything, though I usually put them around the edges out of the way, not in the middle of the garden, for realism's sake, as you usually see them around the edges in real-life gardens... I suppose so people don't kick them as they walk by. I have some out back in my real-life house that look a lot like some of them in the game.

They're low because that's how many outdoor lights tend to be in real life. Like this:

They also look really nice lighting the edges of pathways too, in the game, like in that picture.

Unless you mean the garden lamp that is in the Build Catalogue with the gardening stuff?? The one that hangs from a ceiling? In which case, no, you don't need that, even in a greenhouse - I don't know about anyone else, but I only use that if I have a plantsim in the household as it keeps their Sunlight need up during the night.

Just for normal gardening outdoors you don't need any lights - as long as you have trees or garden plots your sims will be able to grow their own fruit and veggies! :-)

Wows about trees do I need to "space" them? as in put a tree in skip a square or two put a tree in skip a square or two put a tree in ect? Or can I just do one after another and still be able to harvest and tend? do I need to space rows?

I'm not sure if it's necessary to leave gaps between trees, but it looks nicer. I always do, so I don't know if sims could still tend them if there were no gaps. Probably not, I expect. The same with rows - I always place them so that sims can walk between them to tend, water and harvest their crops.

It's usually better to leave a square in between trees, especially if you've got more than one sim gardening. Helps alleviate "traffic jams" when sims try to go the same way and stomp and complain when there's someone in their way. Regular plants, you can pack tightly together and it's no big deal but they have to walk around trees, so doing them in rows with a space between rows for trees is good. And it looks nice, like a real-life orchard/garden that way.

so tree skip a space tree skip a space ect then?

In my game, I do not skip a space with my fruit trees. I plant them one after another in rows. I do leave two or three spaces between each row, but not between each tree.

If you skip a space between trees, it just means that it takes your sims longer to harvest since they are wasting steps going from tree to tree. And in my opinion, the sims are already too slow.

I never run into traffic jams in my gardens because I make the sims tend/harvest different trees and plants. One harvests the oranges, while another harvests the apples. If they have to harvest the same apple trees, I make one sim start at one end of the row of apple trees, while the other sim starts harvesting at the other end of the row.

However, if you don't have a lot of trees that will take a lot of time to tend and harvest, it does look much better if you leave spaces between trees. (For you, the player - the sims don't care about spacing as long as they can get to the trees when directed.) If you don't believe me, you can time a sim harvesting trees planted close together and compare the time it takes to harvest the same number of trees separated by a space or two. The timing is negligible for small gardens, but when you have your sims tending large orchards of trees, the time is worth saving.

The sims can garden without lights, but it will make their environment score drop when they are outside in the dark. If the garden is big and the environment score drops, the comfort score will also drop more rapidly, so you will want to keep that in mind. You can also pave the tiles between each garden plot to help raise the environment score. Decor such as sculptures and fake plants will also increase the environment score.

I usually put more than one space in between my harvestable trees, less for traffic alleviation, and more because having the trees too close together can sometimes make it harder to click on individual trees. I go for tree B, but tree A is in the way, and I sometimes have to completely rotate the camera to get a better shot of tree B, so I can have my sim tend it. It's not a big deal if you only have a few harvestable trees on the lot, but when you're trying to run a farm, having to constantly move the camera to have the sims properly care for every tree in the orchard can start to be a bit tedious. Plus, as someone mentioned, there are aesthetic reasons as well.

Sims just step over them anyway. Great picture HP for a minute I though it was a Sims Picture and then I read it and found out it was real. Lol ;D