Request: Cherry blossoms in Kugane!

Who would like to see this happen? There are weeping willows, the regional pine trees that you normally see in Japan, and Japanese maples. And yet...no cherry blossoms that are in bloom :( Would anyone like to see cherry blossoms that are ever-blooming in Kugane? It's just green vegetation, and yet there are no delicate blooms of any sort in Kugane. Oh, and maybe some azaleas can be added, and in different colors!

Sincerely,
A horticulturist.

It would be pretty neat if they added a 'Cherry Blossom' weather effect for Kugane and Shirogane where petals fall from the sky. It could be handwaved as the breeze carrying the petals from elsewhere in Hingashi or some such.

Maybe during spring? Little Ladies day festival =]

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Maybe during spring? Little Ladies day festival =]

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Hingashi is actually based on Japan. We only get the cherry blossoms in the 3 city-states during Little Lady's Day, and people could buy them a few years ago (now they are a Mog Station purchase) to decorate their personal housing. I'm talking about actually keeping cherry blossom trees in Kugane all year long. That and maybe flowering plum trees, but have them be a deeper pink with purple leaves (there is a tree called a Purple Leaf Plum tree, and it's an ornamental tree; there are a grove of them that are planted by the road up the street from where I live). Maybe also have weeping cherry blossom trees that take place of those weeping willows. I do believe that in Yanxia, there are those miniature plum trees that we see in bloom all the time.

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

Hingashi is actually based on Japan. We only get the cherry blossoms in the 3 city-states during Little Lady's Day, and people could buy them a few years ago (now they are a Mog Station purchase) to decorate their personal housing. I'm talking about actually keeping cherry blossom trees in Kugane all year long. That and maybe flowering plum trees, but have them be a deeper pink with purple leaves (there is a tree called a Purple Leaf Plum tree, and it's an ornamental tree; there are a grove of them that are planted by the road up the street from where I live). Maybe also have weeping cherry blossom trees that take place of those weeping willows. I do believe that in Yanxia, there are those miniature plum trees that we see in bloom all the time.

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Probably because like snow or falling leaves it's a seasonal thing. It's weird and , for me, a little jarring to have something like that happen randomly.

I am sad the ability to do it on your own house is locked behind an actual purchase but even in japan, cherry blossoms are a once a year thing right?

I'm not against doing cool things, but it seems like an oddly world flow breaking addition to a public area.

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

Probably because like snow or falling leaves it's a seasonal thing. It's weird and , for me, a little jarring to have something like that happen randomly.

I am sad the ability to do it on your own house is locked behind an actual purchase but even in japan, cherry blossoms are a once a year thing right?

I'm not against doing cool things, but it seems like an oddly world flow breaking addition to a public area.

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There are in-lore reasons for the ever-blooming cherry blossom trees. Have you not read it?

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An authentic cherry tree from the Far East modified through generations of grafting and crossbreeding to bloom perpetually.

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http://xivdb.com/item/17044/authenti...rn+cherry+tree

Grafting IS a real thing, too. I learned that in class. I grafted two different apple trees together. You have to take two related plants, like two apples (Malus spp.) and do either a V-shaped cut (easiest to do) to the trunk of the under-stock and then make a wedge piece of the scion (upper part of your grafted tree). You wedge it in there so it connects like a puzzle piece, then you bind it together with plastic wrapping and tape it. Over the course of a few months, that fresh wood that was bound together actually seals itself to form one new plant. You can even make grafts with branches; my Lowes Home Improvement store, in different parts of the US, sells actual apple trees that have THREE different types of apples growing on one tree! You can also do that with citrus trees such as lemons, limes, grapefruits, etc. Only 2 same species of trees can cross-pollinate, such as apples and only apples, cherries and only cherries, etc. Another kicker is that edible apple trees can be pollinated by ornamental (flowering crabapple) trees, and you'll still get edible apples from that first tree, yet the seeds inside that edible apple will be genetic hybrids. AKA, new types of trees to plant!

Now with cross-breeding a cherry tree, as in the description, it's basically cross-pollination. You have cherry blossom tree "A" (say for instance a Yoshino) and then tree "B" (Okame cherry). You cross-breed it with each other by just having the trees planted next to each other. The fruits that the trees produce, their flesh will be the same flesh as a Yoshino or Okame (I've yet to actually see Okame cherry fruits, but this is just an example), but the seed itself is a genetic hybrid. You take that seed out of the cherry it produced, plant it, and when the tree matures enough to produce flowers, you may get a new color and species of a cherry blossom.

Now going into the TRUE genetic hybrid of any regular trees are Japanese maples. There are over 2,600 DIFFERENT genetic hybrids of those trees. That's all of a result of cross-pollination, grafting, and such. For every 1,000 seedlings a single tree produces, you'll get 1 new genetic hybrid. To perpetuate that new hybrid, you make branch cuttings to grow a new tree out of that branch. I'm actually doing branch cuttings right now at my house during this winter. And yes, I'm not kidding you, you can grow a tree out of a branch. I've made 2 Okame cherry trees out of branches.

/end educational rant, lol

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

There are in-lore reasons for the ever-blooming cherry blossom trees. Have you not read it?



http://xivdb.com/item/17044/authenti...rn+cherry+tree

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nope. I don't have those. I don't think i had a house when they were implemented so they wouldn't have been something I'd be interested in.

I still don't know if I'd buy all of Kugane having those everywhere either. Once again I'm not against your idea, I agree it would be pretty, I just don't see a reason they'd implement it since it would make their seasonal event effect an everyday thing.

Well, the Eastern Cherry Trees us players receive do come from Doma/Hingashi, so that's an in-lore reason how we got them into Eorzea. It's the same reason why in the real world that the US gets all of the exotic plants at stores to sell. Also known as importation.

I am just a regular member of the FC I am in, but I did buy some Eastern Cherry Trees from the first seasonal event. They are in my retainer.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/03/living...eat/index.html

horticulture is crazy stuff. Thank you for the educational rant =]

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

[educational rant]

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I love learning random cool stuff! Thanks! :)

You're welcome! I hope that we do get to have a chance to get azalea bushes for our housing areas! All that the development team has to do is take a regular green bush and just add different colored flowers to it. It would make the areas more colorful than just a green bush.

As someone obsessed with japanese culture I give my full support for this idea.

Yeah, it would give it more identity and it would be better for hanging out. I remember during the Xmas event, we had snow in the residential areas. I had some cherry blossom trees that, combined with the snow (which looked like sakura leaves), it gave me a super magical feel ; ;

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

/end educational rant, lol

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While technically possible to create a "perpetually blooming" variety of something like a cherry tree (or apple, plum, peach, etc.), it would require require the proper climate with the correct conditions to keep it in the state of the tree/plant thinking it is okay to bloom. This would likely be a very warm/temperate climate that stays fairly consistent throughout the year, since seasonal shifts would potentially disrupt what life-cycle phase (dormant, grow, fruit/flow) that the plant thinks it is in.
On top of that, I would predict that a "perpetually blooming" cherry tree would look noticeably different than what we think of when we think of a blooming cherry tree since the tree dominated by and completely covered in blooms with little to no leaves is a result of the tree going into a very concentrated flowering phase after coming out of winter dormancy. If the tree were to be perpetually blooming, it would likely have far fewer blossoms at any one time and they would be mixed in with the basic leaf and branch growth since the flowering period would be stretched over a longer time and would overlap with the growth period. It would also probably end up being a very slow growing or dwarf variety due to more energy and resources being devoted into flowering during it's growth period.

Honestly though, in a fictional video game world with magic and other such things, just go with the default justification ... "a wizard did it".

For those interested, here is a great episode of the NHK International show Begin Japanology that focuses on Sakura.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwX5AkeXeX0

I don't know about having it all year round, but there are concepts of months in Eorzea (even if time does go by a lot faster than Earth time). They could still make it seasonal to Eorzea time.

1 year Eorzea = 18 earth days. So even if they did a "spring" thing (3 Eorzean months), that means we'd get about 4 earth days of blossoms every and then 14 days of no blossoms.

So even without some magical always blooming tree, they could still do a seasonal tree that we get to see somewhat often.

Keeping track of intended time in the story is so hard already; I think it would be worse if you could actually see a cycle of seasons implying that years were apparently passing. Better to keep it vague, and not make it look like my character just spent several years pursuing crafting hobbies while the world was waiting to be saved....

(Going through Heavensward currently, and there are a few points where dialogue indicates that a few days have passed since the thing you did one real-world hour ago with no apparent break for your character.)

Are there even cherry blossom trees in Kugane? Also despite the Japanese name, doesn't the local culture make the city out to be more like Hong Kong than anything Japanese?

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Keeping track of intended time in the story is so hard already; I think it would be worse if you could actually see a cycle of seasons implying that years were apparently passing. Better to keep it vague, and not make it look like my character just spent several years pursuing crafting hobbies while the world was waiting to be saved....

(Going through Heavensward currently, and there are a few points where dialogue indicates that a few days have passed since the thing you did one real-world hour ago with no apparent break for your character.)

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It's not like most people would know that it's because a year passed - only those who actually learn and case about Eorzea time (In which case those people already know that they spend X years farming for Y instead of saving the world :D).
To most people it'll just look like every couple of weeks the blossoms bloom, which I think would be nice for them to not be in bloom all the time.

It sounds magical :) I'd love there to be cherry blossom groves :)

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Originally Posted by Lilseph

Yeah, it would give it more identity and it would be better for hanging out. I remember during the Xmas event, we had snow in the residential areas. I had some cherry blossom trees that, combined with the snow (which looked like sakura leaves), it gave me a super magical feel ; ;

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If Ishgard ever has personal housing, I wish that they would have pine trees that had snow on them. They could have the area near a big lake somewhere off in Coerthas, but this area in Coerthas could have less snow and be a milder climate. However, there could be occasional snowfall in that residential area, but nowhere near blizzard conditions like Central Highlands. It would be neat that if the area was just cold enough that it had snow sculptures and icicles hanging from the roofs of houses. You wouldn't have to craft the icicles, but they could naturally form whenever it would snow. And when it does snow over a period of time, a light dusting would form on the ground. Then when the sun comes out over a period of time, the snow fades. That would be cool!

Effects like leaves and cherry blossoms blowing, and dust being stirred up by the wind would really make the cities feel alive.

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Originally Posted by Naraku_Diabolos

If Ishgard ever has personal housing, I wish that they would have pine trees that had snow on them. They could have the area near a big lake somewhere....

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I immediately thought ice-skating!! The same animation as in the Shiva fight :D and snowball fights :D

Would be nice for each housing area to have distinctions :D

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Originally Posted by Aivi_lo

I immediately thought ice-skating!! The same animation as in the Shiva fight :D and snowball fights :D

Would be nice for each housing area to have distinctions :D

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Too bad in Lavender Beds, we don't have little birds flying around. Ones that you can't interact with. I haven't really explored all around it just to see if there is any uniqueness, but are there butterflies or such? I would have thought that fireflies would come out at night. Of course when it rains you hear those frogs (they use the Spring Peepers, North American frog that's very vocal in the spring) are all calling out. I'd say with Ishgard, if there is any housing and if snow does fall down over an extended time, it would be interesting if non-interacting NPC (ones that should just actually represent players but be used as background characters) would go out and build snowmen and then go ice skating, as you suggested! I would agree that little interesting touches should be added to places!