The Sims 4 Gardening Skill Guide: levels, cheats & tips

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

A Sim wearing a black t-shirt with short black hair sprinkles fertilizer on a mound of dirt in a planter outside in a garden.

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:

1
Select a bookshelf and choose Purchase Books.
2
In the pop-up, select the drop-down at the top-left that reads Show All.
3
Choose Skill and scroll through to find the book you want to buy. These will be added to your Sim’s bookshelf.

The skill books are:

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.

1
In Live Mode, select your Sim’s phone.
2
Open the Business app (the briefcase icon).
3
Choose Sit in on Skill Class (§250).
4
In the pop-up menu, choose Gardening. Your Sim will leave the Lot and gain the Gardening skill while at the class.

Note: Skill Classes are only available between 9 a.m.– 9 p.m.

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:

1
Entering Live Mode.
2
Selecting the Sim Panel (bottom left).
3
Selecting the Skills tab.

Here, you can check how many skills your Sim has and what level they are in each.

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.