So the gift system is a bust, right? They're just so rare to come by. Unless you have a real-life friend (or alt account) to coordinate with, it'll be very difficult to get 30 gifts sent/received in order to be able to send the gifts with guaranteed cookies.
So has anyone here bothered to do the cross-pollination stuff to get all the flower trade items?
It's basically the only thing I haven't put effort into because it just seems to time-consuming and unfun.
Heh, I put it off for two years but I'm actually in the middle of finally doing this right now. They added the ability to cross-pollinate multiple flowers at a time a few months ago and it makes the process much less of a cumbersome slog than it was before, so I figured what the hell. There's a good guide on
Gamepedia, though I'm not following the Quick Guide too strictly. I'm casually making my way through the Tulips first and the only hard part was getting the first Blue seed. I'll save you the trouble and just say that you should find a friend who has a Blue in their garden as it makes the process much faster.
Really, the key to cross-pollination is to get that first seed. For most of the colors, it's a matter of leaving one of that color in your garden, then just buying and growing seeds from Lloyd to cross-pollinate with that color. Blue Tulips are a bit trickier because it's difficult to get that first Blue, and you can't use Lloyd Orange (O/W) to directly get more Blues. Instead, you have to cross Lloyd Orange (O/W) with Blues to get Orange (O/B) and White (W/B), and then cross those O/B and W/B back with Blue to get more Blue. Basically, once I got my first Blue it was a matter of leaving one in my garden and just throwing Oranges at it. I would plant any Orange or White seeds I got as a result of the cross, then bought Orange seeds from Lloyd to fill out the rest of my garden. Rinse and repeat. I'd say that once I got a Blue, it took me 2-3 weeks of cross-pollinating to get 145 seeds needed for the color set. The more common colors take a little less time since they don't need the extra step that Blue takes.
Anyway, if anyone's interested you can add me (9583 3777 490) and I'll leave one of each Tulip color up for a few days so you can get those key starter seeds. I haven't started on Pansies yet, however.
Break Tapper, though, good lord. I would pay LT just to get those freaking medals, lol.