New Player - Gardening?

Hi!
I just hit 50 and learned about housing. I'd love to try the gardening aspect of the game. (I know I can share my FC's garden, but since I'm new to the game, I just want to mess around with gardening first, and I don't want to mess up my FC's gardens.)

I tried to buy a house several times, even after clicking for over 10hrs straight (with my husband trading in to click for me at times). So far FFXIV has been great fun, but not this housing part.

I would actually be completely happy with an FC room or an apartment, if there was a little patio garden, or indoor planter, or something? I just don't want to be locked out of the gardening part of the game, it seems like a fun mini-game, but currently the process for a new player to buy into a house seems like torture (totally anti fun, unlike the rest of FFXIV).

As a new player, are there any other options to try gardening? (without bugging my FC, who is actively using those plots for serious planting or without killing my hands/my sleep to get a house?)

Are there such things as a planter that I can buy/craft to put into my apartment? Is there like a communal garden (like inner city shared community gardens in New York/San Francisco) that I can rent a plot at?

Thanks!

P.S. I have all these seeds from Gathering and tons of soil from Mining... most don't seem to be worth much on the Market Board and abysmal worth at the npc vendor... doesn't that mean those are better for gardening? Or are there other things players can do with them?

The item your looking for is called Flower Pots.. They function the same as the gardens with the exception that you can't crossbreed the seeds.. I believe you can buy them from the venders in the housing districts

If you have a friend who has a house and a garden you could ask them if you could use their garden. Otherwise until they either finally fix the housing problem or give apartments a garden capable of crossbreeding you're going to need to ask your fc if you can try it. Just a warning gardening eats up a lot of inventory space.

Player run gardens (not attached to housing) are coming in Shadowbringers. At the moment gardening is limited to garden plots in houses' yards or flower pots (which you could put in an apartment or FC room if you want some of your own.) A good resource for gardening is: http://www.ffxivgardening.com. In general any soil that isn't a "grade 3" version of that type of soil isn't going to be worth much, with Thanalan Soil being the most frequently used.

once it comes to gardening, at the moment, it's pretty strict, unless you have an apartment or room in the FC house, you'll NEED a house (private or shared estate) in order to mess with it to it's full potential. There are some seeds in the game the ONLY come from gardening, crossbreeding in particular, that require certain combinations, and some that require combinations on top of combinations. Otherwise, if you're just looking to use the garden for simple plants like lavender to serve as tokens for certain materials from one of the vendors, you can use Flower Pots which are easy to manage and just require the regular maintenance of a plant.

Thank you all so much for your reply. I would like to do crossbreeding in gardening. It's really heartening to hear about those gardens coming in Shadowbringers. In that case, I'm not going to spend much more time on housing and just wait for Shadowbringers then. Whew! Saved my hands and my sleep. Thanks again everyone.