Overview
Learn how to build the Gardening skill in The Sims 4, unlock new plant interactions, discover skill rewards, and use cheats to level up faster. Whether your Sim is planting their first seed or mastering rare plants, this guide covers everything you need to grow a thriving garden.
About the Gardening skill
- The Gardening skill comes with The Sims 4 Base Game, and is a 10 level skill.
- Elder, Adult, Young Adult, and Teen Sims can all build this skill.
- Child Sims can help in the garden, but instead of building the Gardening skill, they’ll build Mental skill. To learn more about how Child Skills work, check out our guide.
- The Gardening skill is needed to progress in both the Botanist and Floral Designer branches of the Gardener career.
- You’ll need to max this skill to complete the Freelance Botanist Aspiration.
- The Homey Lot Trait will build a Sim’s Gardening skill faster, and they’ll get a Happy Moodlet.
How to build the Gardening skill
There are multiple ways for your Sim to build the Gardening skill. Some interactions are only unlocked when your Sim reaches a certain level of skill.To get started with gardening, you’ll need some seeds and planter boxes. Check out our gardening guide for all the tips and tricks you’ll need!
Reading skill books will work towards building skills, but it is slower than other methods. Books will only get you as far as level 9 of a skill.To buy skill books:The skill books are:
- 1Select a bookshelf and choose Purchase Books.
- 2In the pop-up, select the drop-down at the top-left that reads Show All.
- 3Choose Skill and scroll through to find the book you want to buy. These will be added to your Sim’s bookshelf.
- Gardening Vol 1: Water, Light, and Dirt
- Gardening Vol 2: Getting your Thumbs Green
- Gardening Vol 3: Strange and Forbidden Plant Genetics.
If you own The Sims 4 Discover University Expansion Pack, your Sim can attend skill-building classes. These are rabbit-holes, so your Sim will leave the Lot for some time and then come back when the class is over. Note: Skill Classes are only available between 9 a.m.– 9 p.m.
- 1In Live Mode, select your Sim’s phone.
- 2Open the Business app (the briefcase icon).
- 3Choose Sit in on Skill Class (§250).
- 4In the pop-up menu, choose Gardening. Your Sim will leave the Lot and gain the Gardening skill while at the class.
If you own The Sims 4 Businesses & Hobbies Expansion Pack, your Sim can learn or teach the Gardening skill using the Sharing is Caring Whiteboard. You’ll find this in Build Mode.
Gardening skill levels
As your Sim builds the Gardening skill, they’ll be able to plant, grow, and graft more plants of different rarities.A green progress bar will appear above your Sim’s head and gradually fill up as they’re building a skill. You can also check their progress by:- 1Entering Live Mode.
- 2Selecting the Sim Panel (bottom left).
- 3Selecting the Skills tab.
Are you a gardening pro? Download our gardening checklists to keep track of which seeds and plants you’ve collected and grafted.
At this level, your Sim can buy all Starter Seed Packets and perform basic plant interactions like Plant, Water, Weed, and Harvest.
At this level, your Sim unlocks the:
- Research Gardening ability on the computer
- Research ability on individual plants
- Water Area interaction
- Evolve interaction.
At this level, your Sim:
- can Fertilize plants
- increase their Fun Need while gardening.
At this level, your Sim unlocks the:
- Talk to Plants interaction—this will also boost your Sim’s Social Need
- Harvest Area interaction.
At this level, your Sim unlocks the:Need help figuring out grafting? Check out our gardening guide for steps!
- Take Cutting interaction
- Graft interaction
- ability to buy all Seasonal Seed Packets
- Mentor other Sims in this skill.
At this level, your Sim unlocks the Weed Area interaction.
At this level, your Sim unlocks the:
- Spray Area for Bugs interaction
- ability to buy three new seed packets (Uncommon Seeds, Farmer Veggies & Herbs, and Farmer Fruits & Flowers).
At this level, your Sim unlocks the:
- Regrow a Bonsai Tree ability to reshape it
- Super Sell interaction.
At this level, your Sim unlocks the Tend Garden interaction. This lets your Sim water, weed, and bug spray their garden all at once, without queueing up multiple interactions.
At this level, your Sim unlocks the ability to buy Rare Seed Packets.
Gardening skill cheats
When using skill cheats, type in the number of the level you want to reach. For example, putting stats.set_skill_level major_gardening 7 into the cheat bar will get your Sim’s Gardening skill up to level 7.PC and Mac
PlayStation®
Xbox
- 1Press Control + Shift + C to open the cheat dialogue box.
- 2Type testingcheats true and press Enter to turn on cheats.
- 3Type stats.set_skill_level major_gardening [skill level] and press Enter.