Category: Build me

Creating environments and places with items you can buy or build inworld.

Winter solstice 2015

Winter solstice 2015

It was going to be a mild winter this year in Bay City, with no white Christmas expected this week. After all, having a snow blanket in a static place that actually has no need to change is not a must. Most of SL is like the tropics: one season all year round. But then I asked myself, what’s the point of being in a world that doesn’t want to change? So change the plot I did, in time for the second solstice of the year (just a few hours away). And then I had some fun taking a few pictures in a dense fog intended to hide what lies behind. Don’t expect a full scan of the build, as it wasn’t so attractive from a distance. If I were to give each picture a name, it would go something like this… (Click the pictures for larger versions).

Winter 2015
Utility poles, Douglas firs and some wintry trees
Winter 2015
Douglas fir in the foreground; wintry trees and Aspen
Winter 2015
A little bit of Douglas, the Scots and some other trunks
Winter 2015
It’s not Halloween in winter
Winter 2015
Don’t know… but this one reminds me of a train (go figure)
Winter 2015
Perspective on the utility poles with wintry trees of all sorts
Winter 2015
Stereo view it’s not
Winter 2015
The arrival (whatever)
Winter 2015
That little streak in the upper right corner…
Winter 2015
Shrubbery in the snow

Well… I needed to place something between the pictures to break the monotony. Products showcased: Studio Skye, Botanical, Happy Mood, and {anc} (left that one for last on purpose, since it’s from the December 2015 Arcade round).

Golden Shower

Golden shower

For its common name, this must be the perfect tree for the Gorean and their relatives: the Golden Shower, but it isn’t exactly so. The Cassia fistula, as it is scientifically known (or caña fístola, as it is called where I grew up), is really a beautiful RL tree, that produces cascading  racemes of very intense yellow flowers, sometimes with a creamy tinge. Its fruit is a long tubular pod that contains the seeds arranged in a single row and cushioned by a somewhat stinky pulp. Most parts of the tree (leaves, flowers, bark, pulp and seeds) have some medical uses to treat a variety of human maladies such as the flu, measles, cough and other respiratory conditions, chicken pox, constipation, gallstones, skin and kidney diseases, bumps and bruises, insect stings, and some people even claim tumors and the dreadful cancer. Sounds like a miracle plant, isn’t it? Now, 3D Trees brings this magnificent tree to your SL garden.

Cassia fistula

Frogbit

Frog-size panda on a pond

Trillium

Getting ready for the coming spring, I cut SL winter pretty short and went to work on a more common setting in my backyard, when there came along Cube Republic with some nice releases early birdies should get their hands on right away. To at least maintain the yearly rhythm, let’s start with the whitish Trillium pictured above. This three-petal perennial begins to bloom in late winter, during the month of February, and depending on the “cultivar” (if we can speak of such things in SL gardening) continue to do so throughout spring. So it was a logical choice to distribute them not so sparingly among the fallen branches.

Bloodroot

Next came the Bloodroot, another whitish flower that heralds the arrival of spring. This one is so shy that the plant will go underground when the season is over and will remain dormant until the following year.

Orchids

Orchids are among the favorite flowers of many a bunch of gardeners, and though I think in the tropics there are species blooming at different times of the year, I think most, like many other plants, prefer spring to bloom. Actually, Cube released this one in December, and I was going to place a few branches full of them in a greenhouse, but because I was moving –yep, once again– I opted to wait and use them in the new parcel after melting the snow down.

Frogbit

What actually set me in the writing mood was this beautiful frogbit rendition, as I’m particularly fond of aquatic, or I should say “pondish” plants. The frogbit resemble a miniature water lily with more simple flowers that will also bloom mostly in the summer, so this is just a preview for you my dear readers, and as soon as I finish this they will revert to leaves, leaving the frog-size panda rowing silently on the pond until the right time comes.

Iris

Finally, here is a gorgeous flag iris, another plant suitable for wetland lovers. Like other aquatic plants (including the frogbit above), this one also prefers to bloom during the summer months.

All plants in this post are available at Cube Republic’s inworld store, so head there now and have some early gardening fun.