Plant Rankings for Build a Garden Tower

Use this page next to the tier list hub. The hub is the philosophy. This page is the split: income plants versus showcase plants. Both are valid. Mixing them on the same floor without a plan is how collection paths die.

We still will not invent a named stat block for every crop. The live shop changes with restocks and numbered updates. Instead we name the families visible in official thumbnails and the store, then tell you which family belongs where.

Income family (keep carpeting)

Low fruit trees and bush rows. Official Day 1 art is a single fruit tree. That tree is the tutorial: small footprint, readable fruit, easy collect. Copies of that idea — compact producers — should cover most of floor one and two.

Dense greenhouse trays. The $1/s starter house is packed with low green plants under glass. That density is the lesson. If a restock plant is short, cheap, and stackable in a grid, it is an income plant even without a wiki name.

Anything whose tooltip ≥ your HUD’s average plot. Math beats lore.

Income plants are the whole point of make money. Delete them only for an A-tier rare that wins the tooltip fight. See rare plants before you gut a row.

Showcase family (edges and top floor)

Official Update 6 art is a mood board:

• Cherry blossoms and a red torii
• Orange tulip rails
• Indoor water / koi-style pond
• Pines and succulents around a courtyard
• Pagoda roof glass

These are showcase. They sell the fantasy and they photograph well. They are allowed on the top floor and along railings after cash-per-second is no longer embarrassing. They are not allowed to replace an entire S carpet on day two.

If a showcase plant also has a strong tooltip, it is a hybrid — treat it as income that happens to look expensive. Hybrids go in corners that still collect cleanly.

Forage and crate family

These are not a visual style; they are a pipe. Keep them if they beat a plot. Duplicate copies become showcase. A forage plant that blocks the walkway is a C even if it was hard to roll. x2 Forage Luck increases how often this family appears; it does not make a bad model good.

Open crates with storage space. A crate plant that never leaves inventory is not a ranking, it is clutter. +200 Storage exists for this exact failure mode.

Practical grid (September 2026)

Family	Default tier	Place on
Compact fruit / tray crops	S	Every early plot
Forage/crate upgrade with better tooltip	A	Replace worst plot
Update 6 themed trees, torii, pond	B	Top floor, edges
Huge models that hide prompts	C	Skip or balcony only
Pure furniture (benches, lamps)	C for income	After the rate is fine

Re-run this grid after each patch. Update 6 is the current theme filter.

How to rerank after a restock

1. Screenshot your HUD cash-per-second.
2. Buy one new plant in a test plot.
3. Wait a cycle, screenshot again.
4. If the number did not move, sell or move the plant to showcase.
5. If it moved, clone it across empty plots on the newest floor.

That test is better than any invented wiki table. Do it once per restock, not once per minute.

Related pages worth opening

• Buy order for hour one: starter plants
• Hunt path: rare plants
• Passes that change how much of this list you can hold: game pass planner
• Controls if you cannot find the tooltip: how to play

Rank plants by the job you hired them to do. Fire them when they stop doing it.