But we still think that the best garden center around is Liliana Bethune's Lilipily. It's not nearly as big as it looks. Judicious use of screens, hedges, streams and clumped plants have successfully divided up the garden into discrete areas giving an illusion of great space. At every turn there is a new vista and we are suddenly discovering delightful garden spaces, cuddle spots and even dance floors. You can get everything that makes a garden a garden, statuary, wind chimes, even paintings on canvas. As an architectural principle, Tessa believes in designing for the environment you're in which is why she rarely bothers with walls, doors (bloody nuisance: make 'em phantom and just walk through) and is quite happy to put paintings outdoors, even where there's that virtual rain which is never wet. We should also mention that the principals at Lilipily are disturbingly New Age and seem to expect us to prostrate ourselves before various Buddhistic images. Sorry, been there, done that. We find the Dalai Lama a cynical political manipulator, and have actually seen the discipline monks wielding their whips on young boys at Tibetan monasteries. But the total effect is delightful. And all plants you buy are reasonably priced and copyable. You don't need to buy multiple plants to fill the sim.
The negatives? There's just too much product on display. This has two results. Firstly you can get hopelessly lost. Really! There is a way round this which involves clearly defined wide paths but it doesn't quite work because of the second problem. Yes, the one prim sculpty plant in multiples combined with textures which are just too big means that you're stuck immobile amongst uniform gray. Make sure your graphics prefs are set at the lowest settings before you venture into Lilipily!
This sudden explosion of horticulture came about when, prim profligate as usual, Tess found one of those annoying "parcel full" signs popping up.
Shit!
Of course it was another Linden miscalculation, but, being accustomed to the futility of dealing with that faceless bureaucracy, Tess had no option to hie herself to Lilipily and see what was new in one-primmery.
The usual half hour wait while it rezzed, the usual jerky walk through scary jungles, the usual falling into hidden creeks and brushing off of virtual mud, the usual suppressed vomitus when we passed the new age stuff. But an underlying feeling of deep satisafction. Gardens are great but the absence of annoying insect life makes a virtual garden visit even more relaxing and stimulatory to the senses.
Since we're in fashion blog mode, let's mention that the tee shirt is from Armidi as are the gray tweed slacks
We then turned our attention to the barbecue area. Tess is a dab hand at barbecuing and rarely eats indoors in the clement SL climate where you don't even get wet if it rains. Of course she has a 5 star barbie with gas and charcoal (only virtual pear wood!) and smoking hood, but the area was exhibiting some disturbingly bare spots.
Lilipily have always done large screens, big prims textured with forest scenes. We've used them before but have never been fully satisfied with the results. They usually turn out to be just big pictures with straight edges which require heavy disguising. However this one, the "Bamboo and Tropical Plants Screen", was different in that discrete use of alpha texturing gave it a nice top and edge. But we whacked a couple of cycads at the edges at any rate, just to be sure.
This hair is just terrific. It's Gigi from Mirone. Tee is once again from Armidi, sentiment ("You're damn right I'm right") is also by Armidi but heavily endorsed by Tessa. Notice how, almostly uniquely in SL, Armidi knows how to spell "you're". Glasses are Alicia by Nala
Then we thought we'd fill in a few bare spots along the brick paving. This one was only one prim like all the rest. Lilipily call it a Travellers Palm. Fair enough. We're prepared to make allowance for the wide geographical variations in plant naming that you see in SL. The Lindens name it plumeria when everybody knows that it's a pink frangipani. But to us this is a simple aspidistra.
Tee by Armidi
Tess is dedicated to Gracious Living in the garden and to this end has designed a number of platforms giving different vistas of the sim. The idea's straightfoward, a platform, a couple of Pillow Talk cushions, a sensuous oriental rug, some naughty poseballs, a great view and Bob's your uncle.Tessa pressed us hard to include the balls on this and even a pic of her utilising the balls with some rough trade she'd picked up, but in defernce to the sensibilities of our AFs, we have chosen to depict merely how terrific this screen looks. One prim!
The tank is Zebra Head by Emery who have a great range of rock tanks and tees. Do you need to know more about them other than that their main store is on the Heart of Glass sim?
The question then arises, what do you do with the space created under the new platform? Just fill it, dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza. Color's good and we'd been guilty in the past of using Lilipily's Rhododendra for this important task. But Prims.... Three prims per plant and you need half a dozen to fill a reasonable space.
No more! The new Lilipily Rhodies are one prim and ginormous. So we took a couple, mixed them with some sculpted clumps of lace-leaved ferns for green relief, and they look terrific. Four prims to do the work of what would have been at least twenty in the old dispensation. I know Tessa looks like a slut disporting herself like that but bear with us.
This pic taken on the platform shows both how well the new screens do the edge thing and also how you still need to stick a disguise on the edges if you're after total authenticity. It also shows just how cute that little pigtail on the Mirone Gigi hair is.
We dug a small valley amongst the hills, a hidden garden which we set out to make as lush as we knew how. That freakin lost sculpty tiger roars from in there somehow and we just know that eventually we'll find the weather center again and will be able to stop the rain. In RL we love the Abyssinian banana, musa ensete ventricosum. We love the big green tummy (hence the ventricosum), the massive deep green leaves and especially the great red veins on the back of each leaf.
There are a couple of options for musa ensete in SL. There's one from DiBoutanicals, a nice looking plant created by somebody who'd never seen a serious musa ensete. And no less than ten prims! Then there's the one we plonked in the middle of the hidden valley. It's from Bliss Garden Center, it's one prim, and it's not bad. Critiques? The leaves are a little redder than they should be and the red vein isn't big enough. The first we fixed by modding the color to something luminescent. The second we couldn't fix. Note that if you're searching it, in common with most of SL Luna Bliss has orthographical issues. She spells it as Abyssinium banana.
Tessa also has a folly which she fills with pre-Raphaelite paintings amid beds of lilies where she prays for forgiveness and purification.
Fat chance Ned!
Some, and let us say that we're well amongst them, would say that it's pure contrariness which makes Tessa eschew the fash Buddhas and put a Lourdes statue in the garden's more formal parts. Tessa merely bows her head in prayer for the souls of the cynical, and announces the opening of an appeal to allow her to build a real Lourdes grotto in her garden, replete with healing waters which will fix premature crashes and walking through floors.
Pray with us.
