Strange Horticulture Review: How long does it take to beat? How to find Elderphinium?

Strange Horticulture is an occult puzzle game in which you play as the proprietor of a local plant store. Find and identify new plants, pet your cat, speak to a coven, or join a cult. Use your collection of powerful plants to influence the story and unravel Undermere’s dark mysteries.

How long does it take to beat Strange Horticulture?

The plants in Strange Horticulture do all sorts of things: There’s one that can open anything that’s locked. Others can make someone brave, ease their pain, lure them to their death, or protect them from the cold. Fox Button — scientific name Canimum vulpes — is a plant that symbolizes friendship, its fluffy flowers supported by a stem with pairs of shiny leaves. Harlequin Blue, on the other hand, is often used as incense — incense that screams as it burns.

But Strange Horticulture offers plenty more: A mysterious, occult story that unfolds around the very plants you sell, along with clever puzzles that encompass everything from identifying plants to solving riddles and reading a map.

Gameplay largely remains consistent throughout the entirety of Strange Horticulture, which took about five hours for me to complete. When it does change, it changes gradually — like when you unlock a laboratory to brew elixirs from different plants. Once the story was finished, Strange Horticulture still kept me coming back: new clues opened up the map, with a bunch more plants to find.

Strange Horticulture is, appropriately, a strange game, one of those simple premises that balances intrigue, sense of place, and puzzles in a satisfying, tactile way. It’s so easy to become engrossed in this world, to become obsessed with the litany of beautiful, exotic, and sometimes dangerous plants that line the walls of my shop. And it’s already one of my favorite games this year.

How can we save Strange Horticulture?

In fantasy games, adventurers and common folk alike are always in need of potions and herbal remedies. In the world of Strange Horticulture, you are the supplier of strange and oftentimes magical plants. Just as the barkeep knows all the town secrets, however, you begin to learn what ails the locals and that not everything is just as it seems.

Use Context Clues To Identify Plants: When your uncle left you the shop, he didn’t exactly leave many clues for you.

Use Your Mouse To Examine: You have a lot going on across your screen in Strange Horticulture, between plants, books, maps, letters, and customers.

Identifying Plants Correctly Increases Your Knowledge: Whenever you correctly guess the identity of a plant and give it to a customer, you will be rewarded with one – if not more – new entry to your Strange Book of Plants.

Misidentifying Plants Costs You Sanity: Obviously, giving your customers the wrong plant could be disastrous. Confusing one herb for another could spell someone’s doom instead of a good night’s sleep.

Label Plants As You Identify Them: Your late uncle might have liked running his shop by the seat of his pants, relying on his extensive memory of plants alone, but you don’t have to.

Read Each Letter Carefully: The mail will be delivered to your house every day, containing letters that might seem innocuous at first.

Water Your Plants To Explore More: As the day progresses, your “Will To Explore” meter will slowly generate, naturally giving you the chance to travel outside Undermere once, if not twice a day.

Each Day You Will Draw A New Card: Completing a day successfully will reward you with a perplexing cutscene.

How to Find Elderphinium in Strange Horticulture

Finding Elderphinium might be one of the most difficult puzzles in Strange Horticulture. But if you’re struggling, we’re here to help.
Your journey to find Elderphinium – a very specific type of plant – in Strange Horticulture begins with a random note asking you to meet someone at the source of the River Winster. The ‘source’ of a river is where it begins inland, rather than where it joins with the sea (that’s the ‘mouth’). And so you’ll find the source of River Winster in square J-22, highlighted in the image below.

When you click on the quest, though, nobody is there; it seems whoever left you a note has now gone. But at their camp, you’ll discover a clue that’s been left for you, made out of sticks on the ground. The clue? “↓2 →3”, or in other words “down two, right three”.

And so, from the square you’re currently on (the source of the River Winster), move down two and right three. That will put you on square L-25. Click that and you’ll be given a strange new device.

The device can be used to find hidden things and messages in your environment. And, it turns out, hidden notes on your map. But to use it, it will need to be combined with Red Abony, a flower you should have in your collection. Despite being called Red Abony, the plant is actually one large, big dark blue flower. Once you’ve used Red Abony with your device, you can now start using it.

Open up your map and use the device. You’ll see a few examples of text now glowing. Move the device around, and you’ll find one that says “Elderphinium location”. Click to visit, and that’s it: you’ve found Elderphinium in Strange Horticulture!