Writer|Photographer: Teresa Firelight
I recently discovered the Skye Zen Garden Building Kit, and it is extremely low LI for incredibly beautiful landscaping. I discovered it because I was walking in a newly released Sakura region shortly after getting my parcel. I noticed someone with the kit on a platform just above his house and watched as he put it together to make a lovely yard. It looked nice, and it looked easy to do, so I IMed him and asked him a few questions about it. He invited me over to take a closer look. He also told me that when you link it all together, the LI used goes way down. In his case, the entire large yard (including some Japanese pieces that did not come with the kit) was only 79 LI.
I left there thinking, I really need to get this. So I went to the marketplace and bought it.
As it turned out, the pieces were a bit too large for my 512 yard. So I began pulling them apart and creating my own smaller landscaping. I was amazed at how easy it was to do this. The kit had been put together in a way where you could put the pieces together or where you could edit it and pull off parts. There were filler pieces to use. Most of it was easily resizeable.
It was sort of the best of both worlds. If you knew how to edit, it was easy to pull this apart and use it to make your own unique creations. If you did not know how to Edit, no worries, you could just lay the pieces down and stick them together – super easy. And if your editing skills were not up to that, they even had a couple of pre-made configurations in a rezzer.
I remade the pieces for my tiny 512 Benibara backyard. I enlarged the small waterfall, and it looked great as larger pieces. I was rather plush with the plants and rocks. The garden turned out really pretty and only cost me 25 LI once I linked it all together. In addition, they included the ground and gravel textures in the kit. So I was able to stick a flat prim over the entire parcel, texture it, and completely hide any “holes” that did not have the kit covering them.
I decided to use the same kit in the front yard. I also threw in a tiny 5 LI boxed Koi Pond that I created from Prims and Skye water. The portion of the front yard made from the Zen Garden kit only cost 8 LI.
This kit works really well with the 1024-sized Sakuras. I upgraded from a 512 to a 1024 and choose the Ajisai style house, which has a U-shaped patio and a large rectangular backyard. I filled the “U” with a little koi pond and used the Skye kit in the backyard. I really wanted a large pond, lots of plants, and not that much path. So I decided to dissect the pieces and make my own lush garden, similar to what I had done on the 512 lot. Only this area was a LOT larger. I started by pulling the tiny waterfall/pond piece out and enlarging it to make a relatively large pond. I stuck some full pieces (like the kinked path and gravel path pieces) in there and filled in with dissected other things to fill in the gaps. I added a few of Love’s Mixed Wildflowers and some assorted full perm tropical plants I had purchased a long time ago. I duplicated the pond on the other end and had a path connecting the two ponds. I did not link everything together because I might want to move some pieces around. The whole thing (unlinked) cost only 42 LI.
The front yard created more of a problem for me. It was a very long and very narrow rectangle. I must have tried 5 or 6 different things before I finally found one that worked. I divided the front into three rectangles. I put Love’s ground cover and some cherry blossom trees on the two ends, and the center rectangle was filled from the Skye kit. (I had tried to put a wood frame pond there, but it just did not work.) I enlarged the waterfall/pond even larger than what was in the backyard and stuck it in front. I accompanied that with some wide Zen Garden steps, more plants, and some mossy ground cover. The front yard Skye Kit pieces only cost 9 LI. (The Love flowers and Felix trees were also very low LI and only cost me 7 LI.)
I don’t want to give the impression that the Skye kit only works with the Sakura. I have seen it used nicely in the Newbrookes. In fact, I have enclosed two pictures of that. One is the side yard of a 512 Gatewood house. This is a narrow strip running the 16M along the side of the house and curving around to the front. A path worked perfectly there, and the Linked landscaping cost only 13 LI.
The parcel behind the Gatewood home is extremely narrow. But it was “finished” beautifully with a Skye rock (slightly resized to fit), along with some ferns and mossy ground cover. That only cost 3 LI.
Also, the Zen Garden kit has been successfully used in Victorian homes. It makes a lovely victorian garden if you add some nice flowers to it (as pictured above). The garden in this picture costs 47 LI.
Just in case you want to try this, here is a link to the marketplace page: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Skye-Zen-Garden-Building-Kit/18025666
Happy Gardening!
Newly added Listings. Week of July 26th. 2022
For the week of July 26th. 2022, we have 3 new listings this week to share with you.
| NEW LISTINGS | WEEK OF 26.07.22 |
| The 512 Square Meter Home More info in box on porch. Find Under Sakura Home Listings. |
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Tara |
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| Wyldforest A wild one Under Fantasy Home Listings. |
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