Option A: After the Caves and Cliffs update, it occurred to me that azalea trees and moss blocks can be awesome to make small areas of a desert look nice if they happen to be right next to a jungle (i.e. humid). Those deserts often have occasional azalea trees and lush caves underground. Moss looks nicer than grass for lawns in deserts and savannas, and azalea trees have a lusher leaf color than spruce and birch that also isn't biome-dependent. Still, it occurred to me that on the scale of a city, town or even just zoo/mall/subdivision, a single gardening style would get monotonous. I don't want the MPO's AnimalGirl120 Zoo nor suburban development around Classyville and Dunesboro to have lackluster development, and I have yet to actually build any of it but will need to once I get the horse highway from the nether spawn to the Dunesboro portal built. Which other styles do you think would look nice? Option B: Spruce/birch forest. Of course, it feels natural to use the things with consistent leaf colors that have been around the longest. Plus, the deserts in 1.7-1.17 terrain in Minecraft were interspersed with savannas, plains and regular forests, the latter of which naturally have birch trees. Last but not least, spruce trees in Minecraft are probably based off of North America's common white spruce, which is one of the most heat-, humidity- and drought-tolerant spruce species on Earth. Podzol under the shade could offer a nice alternative to the grass, as naturally occurs in giant tree taigas; optionally, a small area of the yard could be covered in moss or green/lime terracotta so at least the front yard has green areas. Sweet berry bushes from taigas could also make a good at-home food source and defensive hedge; monsters don't even try to go through sweet berry bushes because they know they'll get hurt. Option C: Cherry garden. It occurred to me that a nice alternative to the old flowering trees could be the new ones. Furthermore, pink petals under the trees could add to the livelihood, and moss seems to have a very similar color to the grass in cherry groves. Furthermore, cherry groves naturally generate in very dry regions; they're cold/temperate ones, while deserts are hot, but I don't care about that. Weeping cherry trees in real life usually actually grow in warm regions like Tokyo, the District of Columbia or even Dallas, and even Boston and Seattle (which also have them) aren't actually all that cold for temperate areas. Option D: Oak/acacia savanna. Deserts in the 1.7-1.17 terrain generation were often interspersed with savannas, and the foliage color in deserts is the exact same as savannas. Granted, the droughted yellowish foliage color doesn't look great, but acacia trees are native exclusively to savannas, and the wild oak trees and grass in wooded badlands look even worse. Poppies and even things like tulips, cornflowers and sunflowers found in plains could also liven the grassy areas up compared to having just dry grass. Option E: Aquatic garden. Naturally, there is a good way to bring life to the desert in real life, and that's to bring water to the desert. If there's a hole or river near the lawn, that could be a good opportunity to create a small lake with the backyard being a wetland area. Seagrass, kelp, sea pickles, oak trees and vines could resemble the wet areas, although as stated above, the latter two may still look less than ideal with deserts' olive foliage color. Then again, blue orchids on land, a muddy shore (or just leaving sand for a beach), lily pads on the water surface and even corals in the salty lake could cancel that desolation out. Even salmon and tropical fish wouldn't be misplaced visitors, as salmon live in saltwater in real life too and real deserts have colorful but resilient fish known as pupfish. Frogs and axolotls would make great pets here too. Option F: Bamboo forest. There is a way to have a real grassy area without the terrible foliage color, and that's to plant giant grass everywhere, aka bamboo. It'll also prevent monsters, spiders and endermen from spawning without having to light the area. Optionally, the ground could be converted to podzol to resemble a real bamboo jungle. Oak trees could be planted, which are also found in bamboo jungles, but again, they wouldn't look as nice in deserts. Parrots and chickens could make great pets here, even though pandas wouldn't be realistic pets because they're endangered and bears. Rose bushes native to similarly humid but slightly cooler dark forests could liven the area up further, as could azalea trees. Option G: Nether garden. If there's anywhere in the overworld that it'd make sense to plant nether fungi, it'd be the chronically hot and dry deserts and badlands. The temperature value there is exactly the same in the game's code as it is in nether biomes; the nether is just hard-coded to boil water. The nether fungi could optionally be enclosed in a greenhouse to give the impression of it being even hotter, with striders or pigs making decent pets (because hoglins are hostile and would zombify in the overworld). Warped fungal vegetation looks cyan, so still close to green, and crimson could look as though autumn has arrived in Minecraft. A nether wart field or greenhouse wouldn't be out of the question either. Option H: Agrarian homes. Optionally, the lawn could have a front yard made of green or lime terracotta to look convincing, while the rest could be crop fields of beetroots, potatoes and melons arranged in rows. This could work especially well even aesthetically in an exurban, small-town, conservative or futuristic setting, in addition to the functionality. The irrigation canals could even be stocked with pet salmon and/or tropical fish, with them optionally connecting to an aquatic garden further back if it's an appropriate setting. Option I: Stick with the barrens, aka xeriscape. In addition to sand mostly remaining the ground cover, the front yard could still be converted to an oak grove with coarse dirt ground, dead bushes being hedges and cacti being a good defensive border/privacy screen. Additional oak trees around the side or out back could be planted in raised planters made out of a few layers of terracotta of different but natural colors, resembling the wooded badlands plateaus/mountains standing above the sandy lowlands but with lighter leaf and sand colors. Ultimately, I'm just not sure what options would look good together. I want variety, but I don't want the lively zoo's, suburbs' and city centers' barren origins to show through my efforts too much. I'd appreciate your input, please! Thank you!
If only we had actual palms, I would love that, at least sparingly to avoid too much effort. We still need small fan palms in jungles and savannas and big pinnate palms in deserts and warm oceans! In the meantime, though, what type of wood would you suggest if I did that? Stripped birch? Stripped dark oak?
