Most pages about growing lavender from seed either assume too much or explain too little. This aims at the middle, which is where the useful part sits.

Screenshots age faster than instructions, so trust the described behaviour over the picture. The result is consistent once the inputs are, which is less obvious than it sounds. Anything presented as a hidden trick for growing lavender from seed is normally a step a popular guide left out. Two answers to growing lavender from seed circulate online, and both were correct at some point.

Straight to it

If you only do one thing from this page, do the first step properly.

If your situation is slightly different

The version you are running matters more than the platform you are running it on. Most guides are written once and never revisited, which is worth remembering when one does not match. Most of the disagreement online here comes from people describing different versions. Where a guide and the game disagree about growing lavender from seed, the game is right and the guide is old.

Community wikis are excellent for data and unreliable for timing, which is a useful distinction. Interfaces move between versions; the underlying logic almost never does. Terminology differs between communities more than the underlying behaviour does.

Why it works

Doing this in the wrong order still works, it just costs more time than it needs to. The step people skip is almost always the one that makes the rest reliable. There is a point where further refinement stops being worth the time, and it arrives early. Where a guide and the game disagree, the game is right and the guide is old.

When to stop optimising

The step people skip in growing lavender from seed is the one that makes everything after it reliable. It is worth knowing which part of this the game actually enforces and which part is convention. Where two methods both work, prefer the one with fewer places to go wrong. Rushing the setup is the single most reliable way to spend longer overall.

Anything described as a known issue is worth checking before assuming the fault is yours. A method that works for everyone is usually slower than one tuned to your situation, and worth it anyway. The obvious approach works; the rest of this page is about making it work the first time.

Edge cases worth knowing

Nothing here depends on luck, though a bad first attempt can certainly feel that way. Understanding the reason behind a step lets you adapt it when your situation differs. Checking the outcome takes seconds and prevents the most common category of wasted effort.

Checking the result immediately costs seconds and saves the most common kind of wasted time. The version number is the single most useful thing to note before following instructions.

  • Back up your save if the game gives you the option.
  • Check which version you are on before trusting any specific numbers.
  • Do the simple version first, even if you intend to refine it.
  • Turn off anything that could interrupt you partway through.
  • Re-read the step before the one that failed.

Doing it faster once you know the method

Where several approaches exist, the popular one is popular for being easy to explain rather than best. The useful part of growing lavender from seed is one sentence long; the rest is the reasoning behind it. One clean run beats five rushed ones, both for results and for your patience. Doing this properly once is faster than doing it approximately three times.

Common ways this goes sideways

  • Ignoring the warning in the guide because it seemed unlikely to apply.
  • Reading only the summary and missing the condition it depended on.
  • Following the detailed method when the simple one would have done.

Questions people also ask

Is any of this reversible?

Nearly all of it. Anything that is not is flagged in the steps, and there is normally a safer alternative worth considering first.

Does this apply to every version?

The steps target the current release. Older versions usually behave the same way, though menus may sit in different places.

How long should this take?

Most people get through it in one sitting. The first attempt runs long because of reading; the second is much quicker.

Is the longer method worth it?

Only if the short one has already failed for you. Starting with the complicated version is how simple problems become long evenings.

That is the whole of growing lavender from seed, minus the parts that only pad out a page.