A relaxing time spent watering and pruning. Ah, the life!

For many, spending time in a garden pruning, watering, and planting can be a serene and pleasing experience. But if you’re stuck inside or you just lack a green thumb, there’s Plant Tycoon. This game from Last Day of Work does a nice job of capturing the essence of gardening, without dirtying your hands.

A tutorial starts you planting right away. You learn to pot and water your soil, plant your seeds, and prune dead material away. Beautifully composed New Age music accompanies your work. Only time will tell how well your plants will do, but you can set the speed yourself, so your plants can grow overnight if you wish. Your plants grow even when the game isn’t running. Don’t forget about them, because your inattentiveness can result in plants dead from age, disease, or pest infestation. A supply store is right around the corner to meet your needs with tool upgrades, various chemicals, and special seeds.

Once your plants are mature enough, you can pollinate them. Don’t forget to cross-pollinate, as that’s the way to find new and unusual species as well as accomplish the object of the game, which is to discover the six magical plants from Isola. After your plants seed, you can sell them in your nursery.

Plant Tycoon is surprisingly addictive, especially considering that once you plant your seeds, you must leave the game alone for awhile so that the plants can grow. Yet, we couldn’t wait to get back to Plant Tycoon after work to see how our plants were doing. Got kids? They’ll have fun helping you with your pruning duties.

The bottom line. With a large variety of plants to plant, breed, and sell, Plant Tycoon is just as relaxing as tending to an actual garden for both you and your family.

COMPANY: Last Day of Work

CONTACT: www.ldw.com

PRICE: $19.95

REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.2 or later

Relaxing music. Fun to collect the bugs. Seemingly unending cross-breeding potential. Statistics can be shared online.

Can’t see seed history from main menu. Some plants become unhealthy and die for seemingly unknown reasons. Can’t pot, seed, or water multiple pots at one time