Viva Pinata - Taking Five to Ten

You should, at this point, be at least level 5 or very close to it. If you've managed to get a little ahead, good for you. This is where the game really opens up.

Things to come in the next few levels:

• Gretchen Fetchem
• Miss Petula
• Bart's Exchange
• Arfur's Inn
• The Pond Shovel Head
• Sour Pinatas
• Plant List
• Pinata List
• Evolution
• Variant List

Gretchen Fetchem should have also appeared at this time. She will fetch a member of any pinata species that has had a resident member in any of your gardens at any point. Her normal price is the exact same as the base sell value of a pinata and the express service is twice as much. Any pinatas that she brings you count toward the seven that you need for your Master Romancer award but they do not net you the Romancer award which you have to get fair and square. She is completely optional, if you don't want to use her, that is up to you. Keep in mind that using her service can be very efficient when coupled with actually romancing a pinata... or if you're just plain lazy.
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Miss Petula will sell you a variety of domestic pets and accessories for your pinatas to wear which will raise their value. Sometimes accessories are used for romancing requirements but most of the time they are just for aesthetics. I, personally, don't buy the domestic pets early. Each one is a pinata on it's own for which you get awards so I save them until later levels. It's feasible that you could go from level 34 or 35 to level 38 by buying seven of each at the end. It's instantaneous, you can buy in bulk, and it will give you awards for residency as well as Master Romancer Awards.

Bart will come to your garden on request, much like the Doctor, and transform one item into another item. He has three options, bronze, silver and gold, which will all produce the same item if successful but change in their rate of success. I've never used bronze but silver is roughly 50% and gold is always a 100% success rate. Gold is a little more than double silver but you don'tv have to find extra materials if he fails. You should really never hurt for coin enough that you should ever not use Gold.

Arfur's Inn is pretty simple. You walk in, pick a helper, place the contract in your yard and soon a helper will come to your garden, remove the contract and work. All helpers have work hours so they won't be there all the time. The hours listed in a helpers information tab are the hours that they will leave and return to the village which is about a half hour off each end. If you buy a Helper House from Willy then it gets rid of this so that they start working at almost exactly the time listed. To dismiss a Helper you need to highlight them and access the X menu. Pick the "Send Home" option which will let you send them home for the day or Fire/Sack them. You can also give them money which will make them happier and more productive. Never give them more than 100 coins at a time, it's a waste.

The Pond Shovel Head is used to dig small ponds for your garden. Doing so will lure some water loving pinatas. Soon you will have the long grass packet which will give you all three types of land. Unfortunately there isn't really any optimal mix of short grass, long grass, and water that will keep everyone happy so you really just have to mix it up as you go so you get what you want. Note that pinatas will not run away if you take away something they needed to become a resident, provided they are already a resident.

Assuming that you've reached level five, you should have had a Sour Shellybean wandering your garden. You can break these if you'd like but you definitely should break the sour candy they leave behind to keep your pinatas from getting sick.

More important than breaking stuff though, is that we're going to tame this ugly looking little guy. All it requires is an apple seed and a little time. Buy and drop (don't plant it!) the apple seed in the garden and next time the Sour Shellybean decides to roll through town, let him do his thing without breaking him and once he's done being Sour, he should go and eat the apple seed which will shortly result in it changing into a regular Shellybean. Breaking the Sour Shellybean at any point while it's visiting will prevent it from trying to satisfy it's taming requirements. However, you can still break the sour candy it leaves behind so your pinatas don't eat it. This won't effect his attempt at joining your garden. Note that regular Shellybeans eat weed seeds so keeping this guy around can be helpful or hurtful depending on if you need a weed for something.

At level ten, another Sour pinata will visit, the Sour Sherbat. Once again, you need to allow him to run his normal course in the garden afterwhich he has to have access to a Jack 'o Lantern to become a resident. To get a Jack 'o Lantern you need to grow a pumpking in your garden and then visit Bart's and have him transform the pumpking into a Jack 'o Lantern.

Since you should be level five, you should have access to atleast three types of fertilizer. Following is a list of plants you should grow to full maturity by fertilizing and water. This should also net you some experience.

Plant

• Buttercup : Yellow
• Carrot : Orange
• Corn : Yellow
• Daisy : Yellow
• Turnip : Purple

All of the plants should be doable at level five and each one will take the listed fertilizer three times but at any point while it can still be watered. Once the water meter is gone, it has stopped growing and fertilizer will have no effect.

Since this section covers levels five to ten, I'm going to continue this list for everything up to level ten. If you get stuck, see if you can plant and fertilize any of these.

Plant

• Apple Tree : Red
• Blackberry : Purple
• Hazzle Tree : Brown
• Poppy : Red
• Watercress : Green
• Poison Ivy : No Fertilizer required

The first couple of trees are listed here and they can be pretty tricky to grow but don't worry, just keep trying. Generally, for trees, you should fertilize just after planting and then once after each time it shakes off leaves.

The Poison Ivy plant is listed here. It is a weed and will spead rapidly if not kept in check. All weeds will provide you with an award for growing it but you don't get any bonus growth awards from them so it's a good idea to destroy them as soon as they are done growing, which is almost immediately.

Also, the Blackberry tree only requires one dose of fertilizer just when it starts flowering.

After level 10 you have access to every type of fertilizer except for the all- in-one special mix which is not "required" by any of them and really only saves you from experimenting. What this means is that you should, after level ten, be growing each new plant as they become available.

These are requirements for residency, not for visiting or romancing. In some cases, the numbers might not match the numbers in the journal, for instance the Arocknid. The Arocknid only needs tafflies or raisants to visit but since it needs to eat two to become a resident, if you only have four then it will eat one and then leave because it's visit requirements are no longer met.

Pinatas

There are two evolutions to get around these levels. We will get the Twingersnap and then use the Twingersnap to get a Fourheads. You will need two Syrupents. Romance the two of them to produce an egg. Once you have this egg, take out your shovel and watch the egg. It will jump around every now and then but eventually it will break into three very large leaps in quick succession, land, and then hatch. Wait for it to land after its third large hop and then smash open the egg with the shovel to reveal a Twingersnap.

To get a Fourheads, Romance two Twingersnaps and then go through the same process with the Twingersnap egg.

Variants