Carter-Madhu

I have been working with Stormy Aluveaux on a new product we're calling Pocket Gardens. Stormy is the landscape designer behind Madhu's Cafe, the gardens at Beebo's bar The Duchess, and other works I've crowed about here before (links are to SLU posts in this sub-forum).

The idea behind Pocket Gardens is to provide small-scale instant landscaping - prefabs for gardens, if you will. I see our potential buyer as someone who has a skybox or a small plot of land, and feels overwhelmed by the options available for buying plants and doing their own landscaping. A Pocket Garden will give that person a finished bit of landscaping as quickly as they can rez a prim.

Even if they eventually get around to doing their own landscaping to supplement the Pocket Garden, they won't have to stare at an empty, bare plot while they research landscaping options.

Each Pocket Garden will include one or more original poses or animations (that's my contribution to the product), so that owners can enjoy sitting in their gardens as well as looking at them.

Here's an early look at our two existing prototypes - there is lots more work to do before we're ready to open up shop. We will offer Pocket Gardens with different moods, different styles, including some customizable options and expansions. Each Pocket Garden (before expansion) is 10x10m or smaller, and 25 prims or less.

So far we have two styles prototyped - the first is a wild, overgrown style similar to Madhu's Cafe:



This one may also include a low bench with an original couple's sit pose. There is an expansion that nearly doubles the size of the garden. There may also be a version with a transparent ground texture that can be overlaid directly on whatever ground texture is present on the property.

The second style is more orderly, Victorian, though one can sit right in the middle of it and soak up the symmetry:


This one will include an optional low hedgerow in place of the short wall.

(The pictures kind of suck; I snapped them in a sandbox this morning and looking at them now I'm not even sure all the textures in the gardens rezzed fully.)

So, I'd love to ask the smart and experienced collective mind at SLU what you think of this idea. Is this a product you'd think about buying? What options or styles or features would like to see? How much would you pay? I'm thinking of pricing them low enough to be a kind of impulse purchase for people looking for landscaping supplies, maybe 300L. I don't see this product as replacing custom landscaping but rather providing a nucleation point, inspiration, or short-term solution for folks unsure of how to get started on landscaping their property. Of course the hope is that even buyers intending to use the Pocket Garden temporarily do fall in love with them, and keep them out as a permanent showpiece on their property.

Thanks for looking!

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Brig McD

What an awesome idea!!! I hope it's a smashing success

Morrigan Coage

I think is a great idea, with a lot of potential and i like already a lot how you are developing it
I'm not sure how much they should cost, but i think it will depends on the permission you'll set, with one of them copy it would possible to landscape a very big place and the price should reflect that.
For me, i would love to see season personalized gardens, all warm colors for the fall garden, colorful flowers for the spring one and so on...

Humps

I think it is an excellent idea. Love the name too "Pocket Gardens"

I think cool versions could include Secret Garden (maybe surrounded by hedges/walls with a gated access) and ready made historical gardens like a formal Tudor garden. Maybe the larger gardens could come in kit form so that they are flexible for different land sizes and layouts. The possibilities are endless really.

It is an excellent idea and I look forward to seeing you develop it.

Jeni Roussel

Wonderful idea Mahdu. And the price seems very reasonable. In the wild version will there be some option for changing the ground texture so the seam isn't quite so apparent? Dani and I got a prefab pond and the edges came with several different grass sand and rock textures to more closely match the terrain texture at your home. Otherwise you might want to think about some way of hiding the edges, perhaps with grass or flowers. How may prims will each one use?

Let us know when they are done, I would buy the wild one in a second

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Carter-Madhu

Oh wow, thanks for the comments and suggestions!

What a great idea - thank you! I wouldn't be surprised if Stormy were already thinking about this - she knows that I adore fall colors.

Thanks so much. I like the idea of historical gardens, and also kits for assembling larger gardens out of building blocks. We have planned expansion packs that can allow users with more land or more prim-room to add on features that users with tighter landscaping budgets might forego. The kits are a nice extension of that idea.

I agree that there are so many possibilities. I've never brought a product to market but one of the challenges I find myself facing is how to decide where to draw the line just to get the first versions rolled out. I'd like our inaugural products to be good and polished and usable, of course, but if we try to do everything now, we'll never reach launch.

Carter-Madhu

Yes, we're working on that now. One option will be to have no ground texture, so that the Pocket Garden just sits seamlessly atop the ground texture on your property. We are also working on hedges rock walls, and similar borders to allow a transition between the ground texture inside and out.


For the prototypes, each Pocket Garden is less than 25 prims. The expansion packs and other options may add a few prims for landowners who have the room for them.

Aww, thanks so much!

Humps

OH tell me about it .....Trust me it will never be good enough. Of course you have to bite the bullet at some point and just release it but I find that the more I create the more ideas I get and the more inadequate my product feels as a result. You are totally right in that you have to draw a line and say this is the product and then release it because if you keep waiting for it to be finished or complete or worse still until you think it is as good as it can be you will never release it. It is a flaw built into every content creator I ever met

Now I need to go away and follow my own advice

Rev Eponym

I would DEFINITELY buy something like this for a private plot of land. I enjoy building out spaces, but I really have no clue as to how to put together landscaping. So having it pre-built-- or better yet, a kit of parts-- would be exactly what I need.

Seems like you could adapt this idea to both: the buyer who just wants a pre-built garden, and also to the person who has an eye for design, like me, but needs help with the actual assembly of pieces.
.

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Aisuru Rieko

This is a really good idea (wish I'd thought of it first ) Hope it's immensely popular.

I did a kind of "kit" recently with hedges, all different shapes/pieces, so people could build their own formal gardens or hedge mazes, can't say it's been terribly popular even though I thought it would be. Gauging the market, as it were, definitely not my strong suit.



I know lots of people who would really go for ready-made gardens though. Fabulous for skyboxes especially, best of luck.

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Carter-Madhu

Those look great! I'm sorry they weren't as much of a success as you'd hoped. Stormy and I have no idea whether we'll find a market for the Pocket Gardens. But, it's an idea she's wanted to do for a long time, so we're doing it. She loves building them, and I love doing anything that makes her happy.


Thanks again for all the encouragement and kind words.

Khamon

That's a lovely concept and very pretty work Aisuru. But you never know what the market will support. Ingrid built a prefab sky garden that's quite nice. Don't know how many of them she's sold.

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Beebo Brink

Well, I first saw Ingrid's sky garden at Myth's place, and as soon as I had a large enough parcel I bought one myself. It's absolutely lovely.

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talisien

I have one of those myself, made for a splended Halloween decorated garden when I had an island, plenty of room for gallows at one end....

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Carter-Madhu

A quick update on this project for everyone who was kind enough to offer comments on it.

Stormy and I have been working hard to produce a product that is polished and professional. She is brimming over with garden designs but I have encouraged her to focus for now on one or two designs so that we can finalize the set of features that we want to offer with all the gardens.

The first Pocket Garden will include the following features:

* Several sizes/prim counts to accommodate your space
* Ground texture menu, including original textures as well as default Linden ground textures to blend in with existing landscaping
* A beautiful lantern with menu-driven control of brightness and color (in the large version)
* Original (and very romantic, if I may say) couple's pose
* A sweet little sculpted bird
* Bird sounds that may be turned on and off by menu

These features will probably be standard for all the Pocket Gardens, and other features may be added on for various designs, such as multiple poses or menu-driven control of entire floral color schemes (rather than just ground texture).

Now I just have to finish the scripts ...

Anyway I will keep you posted and once we have a product that is ready for public view I will not forget the kindness of everyone who offered feedback.

Carter-Madhu

Another update on this project - the first set is done, pending feedback from testers. I am sending a copy to all of you who have offered your advice on this thread - I hope you enjoy them, and if you have any comments please do let me know.

Lo Jacobs

Carter, I must have missed this thread, but I just wanted to say, what an awesome idea it is! Good luck!

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Solanghe Sarlo

Just noticed the thread...

What a great idea Carter! You know how decor-challenged I am; I would buy one of the wild ones in a second. I think it's a great idea for someone who wants all the pretty without any of the work ( or is clueless as to how to do it like me).

Have you and Stormy considered a "tropical" motif, for those who live on the beach? Or one that would incorporate a fish/duck pond? I also love the idea of different seasons as someone else mentioned; all fall bushes and plants, lots of color. It's true; the possiblities are endless.

I think there is definitely a niche market for this. Not just in residential, but for businesses who want to pretty up their land too. Best of luck!

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EF Klaar

I'm too lazy to go through this thread in detail, so my apologies if it's been suggested already, but wouldn't making making a rezzer/killer for them be handy for prim-challenged landowners? Especially one that can rez one garden selected from a set.

Carter-Madhu

"All of the pretty without all of the work" - maybe that can be our slogan!

Stormy tells me she has 50 designs sketched. I wouldn't be surprised if tropical themes and ponds were among them. Tropical is a good commercial suggestion - it's a theme that leaves me cold, personally (and I think Stormy too) but it's so popular in SL that it could be a big seller. And Stormy loves working with water so she'd enjoy doing a pond. Great suggestions, thanks!

The first set of gardens is more or less the maturation of the "wild" theme I showed in the first post above. I have to take some pictures of it for XstreetSL so when I get around to that I'll post them. I'm not sure which one we'll focus on next, that Victorian one or a different one.


Hm, that's an interesting idea - I'd not thought of that before. How would that help someone tight on prims - would you rez the garden when you want the garden, and then kill it and rez your living room furniture when you want to sit in the living room? Is that something folks do? I wasn't aware of it. Thanks!

Brig McD

I haz a garden!!! And it's soooo pretty!! Your product is as gorgeous as I knew it would be Carter

Khloe

This seems like a great idea! May I ask....what is the smallest prim count you have for the garden?

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Carter-Madhu

Khloe, for this first style, the lowest-prim (and also smallest) size is 30 prims. The three sizes in this first style are:
5m x 5m - 30 prims
5m x 10m - 44 prims
10m x 10m - 58 prims

Oh, I'm still unsure of what to name this style - open to suggestions especially from those who have seen it in world. Suggestions on price are welcome too.

I have never had a commercial product before ... can you tell?

EF Klaar

Yes, that's the sort of thing I meant; garden/furniture/pool/building project/helicopter... It'd also make sense if you followed up on the seasonal garden idea I saw mentioned somewhere here.

Solanghe Sarlo

Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but aren't those temp rezz things a drain? In other words, don't they cause lag?