How to Play Verdant
Learn Verdant’s standard multiplayer turn: select a card and token, build a 5×3 checkerboard, add verdancy, use items, pot plants and refill the market.
This walkthrough covers standard multiplayer Verdant. Keep the official rulebook beside the table for its setup diagram and component reference. Solo market movement and family plant completion are separate procedures. For an overview of the game, visit the Verdant guide.
Set up the shared market
Shuffle plants and rooms into separate decks. Draw four plants in a row and four rooms below them, with four random item tokens between the rows. Each column therefore offers a plant, an item and a room. Put the furniture, pet and nurture tokens together in the bag.
Give everyone two player aids, one storage card, one random plant and one random room. Set out verdancy and Green Thumb tokens. Include all terra cotta pots and three of each bonus-pot type for two players, four for three, five for four or six for five.
The highest starting plant requirement determines the first player; a tie uses alphabetical plant name. The first player gets no Green Thumbs, the last gets two and other players get one. Position each starting plant and room upright and orthogonally adjacent. If the shared edge matches the plant’s lighting preference, add one verdancy immediately.
Teaching suggestion: leave the optional public Goal Cards out for the first game. Show the four market columns before explaining the individual plant illustrations, so everyone understands the basic choice.
1. Choose one card and its token
Normally take one plant or room and the item token in the same column. Collect any Green Thumb tokens resting on your selected card. You do not take both cards from the column.
Before choosing, you can spend Green Thumbs on a market reset or on selecting a card and token from different columns. Check the action reference below for the costs and restrictions.
2. Place the card and check light
Build a grid exactly five cards wide and three tall. Every new card must touch an existing card along an edge; plants and rooms alternate. Keep cards upright and do not move them on later turns. Matching light and room type are opportunities, rather than requirements for legal placement.
Check every newly joined plant–room edge. Each matching light connection adds one verdancy to the plant. This works whether the new card is a plant or a room, and one placement can produce several matches. Completed plants stop collecting verdancy.
Teaching suggestion: examine one edge at a time. Ask “does this room edge offer a light this plant accepts?” before looking at color. That keeps the growth check distinct from the later room score.
3. Use items and complete plants
A room holds one furniture or pet token. It can be placed even if its type does not match the room. Nurture tokens are discarded after use: fertilizer adds three verdancy to one plant; a hand trowel adds one to each of up to three plants; a watering can adds one to incomplete plants around a chosen room.
When a plant reaches its requirement, remove its verdancy and give it the highest-value available bonus pot. If no bonus pots remain, use terra cotta. Fertilizer cannot spread spare growth to another plant.
You can use the newly drafted item, a stored item or both. Plan this part before leaving a second token in storage: storage has room for only one item.
4. Store, check limits and refill
Keep at most one unused item and five Green Thumbs between turns. Discard excess. Replace the selected card and token, then put a Green Thumb on the other card in the selected card’s column. If an action let you take a token elsewhere, follow the card’s column for this reward.
Play passes clockwise. After thirteen turns each, everyone has fifteen cards and the game ends. Use the scoring guide to total the categories.
Green Thumb action reference
Every action costs two Green Thumbs. Before drafting, reset any number of market tokens; set them aside, draw replacements, then return the old tokens to the bag. A card reset can replace cards with no Green Thumbs on them; send those cards to the bottoms of their decks.
You can instead choose any card and any token, once for that turn’s selection. Another action adds one verdancy to one plant. Repeat affordable actions as allowed; the different-column selection replaces your normal draft rather than giving an extra draft.
For first games, announce an action before touching the market. That makes it easier for the table to see which cards are eligible for a reset and which column receives the new Green Thumb.
Sources and scope
Rules checked 5 October 2026 against AEG’s official Verdant rulebook and AEG’s product page. This is researched base-game coverage. Examples and teaching recommendations are original editorial material; we do not claim firsthand playtesting. Consult your included rules for edition differences and the dedicated solo or family procedures.