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Bonsai Gardening

Updated on (created ) — Filed under: 90 Le Slo List Paper Ported Puzzle monoline nature tree
Draw a continuous, vertically grounded path filling the entire board, without two consecutive pieces of the same type.

Based on ruleset by Le Slo & friends

First seen (2021) at Paper Puzzle Zone

Pieces: 3-junctions, straights, corners and endpoints.

Loops are not allowed.

Endpoints may not follow straights consecutively.

Each flower blossoms at an endpoint.

Each fruit is attached to a straight.

Each hummingbird rests at a corner.

A question marks a flower, fruit or hummingbird.

Slybons appear only at T-junctions.

Exactly one straight vertical trunk is grounded.

Fill the whole board.
Rule panels by Pedro on 28/01/2021

Le Slo composed the ruleset and first puzzles of Bonsai Gardening (2021), shared at Paper Puzzle Zone, , alongside many other original paper puzzles.

In less than a month Pedro released the Bonsai Gardening interactive app, leveraging the Kudamono Editor system. Pedro derived the programming logic, decided on colours & input modes and created all graphic assets, by tracing SVG paths. Rule panels by Pedro on 28/01/2021.

All puzzles listed on this page have a single, unique solution. Brand-new puzzles are proudly submitted by their authors regularly, while historic puzzles gain a new life in the interactive Kudamono format: here transcribed for the first time, with permission from each author, on a unit-, genre- or general basis.

Despite the simple Zen theme, the puzzles tend to grow in complexity fairly quickly.

Your goal as a zen gardener is to ensure the bonsai tree keeps a perfect shape: flowers blossom at "1-pieces" (endings) and some fruits may only grow on straight "2-pieces" (trunks). There is only one tree, whose main trunk is rooted at the bottom of the board. Obviously, no loops are allowed.

Importantly, no consecutive "pieces" may be of same type (see table below):

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What if it was possible to design a Bonsai puzzle, which would not be symmetric, but if rotated, would still be uniquely solvable?

This simple question, posed by Andrea Gilbert (Clickmazes), gave rise to the 4-way Bonsai: the trunk may be rooted in any one of the 4 sides of the board. Hence, a single grid gives rise (after some failed attempts) to 4 distinct, unique puzzles! Daniel Hurtado (knexator), dohz confirmed the uniqueness of this puzzle.

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Many nice Bonsai puzzles have been in the making by Lucas (Le Slo), who invented the genre, and many others!

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Daniel Hurtado (knexator) almost succeeded in making a four-way bonsai, yielding a pleasant puzzle in the process.

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This puzzle by Ethan Clark (EPGA Studios) introduced hummingbirds.

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Not only did Karoo make a fractal bonsai (unlisted) as also did introduce the Slybons to the genre.

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Pitogiiyo made a set of minimal puzzles.

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I want to play the bug.

This remark by Jack Lance inspired the variant Bonsai bugs, whose grid cells come in different sizes!

This puzzle by Arvi Teikari (Hempuli) uses the variant loop-allowed as it is impossible to solve without a loop.

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Start with a blank page (new Bonsai Gardening puzzle).

Detailed editing instructions and shortcuts can be found at the manual.

The following variants are suggested: loop-allowed.

For more information about global variants, and how to combine multiple variants in a single puzzle, please see the variants page.

The following custom insertion shortcuts apply to Bonsai Gardening:

Keyboard shortcuts for Bonsai Gardening (S = solving, E = editing, S/E = both solving and editing )
Glyph When Submode Shortcut Description
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> S—-A → Uauto mode: auto-choose submode based on gesture type and location
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> SlineL → Iline (solve): drag or click to draw definitive line (solve)
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> EsymbolXAbsent tile: click or drag to place definitive symbol Absent tile
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> EsymbolPSymbol pot: click or drag to place definitive symbol Symbol pot
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> EsymbolWFlower: click or drag to place definitive symbol Flower
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> EsymbolFFruit: click or drag to place definitive symbol Fruit
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> EsymbolHHummingbird: click or drag to place definitive symbol Hummingbird
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> EsymbolQ, Y or ?Question: click or drag to place definitive symbol Question
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> EsymbolBSlybon: click or drag to place definitive symbol Slybon
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> S/Eaux markXcross: click or drag to place auxiliary cross
www.w3.org/2000/svg'> S/Eaux lineS → Ksketch line: drag or click to sketch auxiliary line

Pressing an exclusive editing shortcut while solving, or vice-versa, causes a switch into that context. In contrast, shared shortcuts cause no switch, but are instead chosen to match the current context.

To copy the right url, simply follow the button sequence (export) → (link).

Likewise, a puzzle image may be exported via (export) → (picture).

Made a puzzle that you'd like to list here at Pedro's Works? Simply follow the Submission Guide!

When sharing a Bonsai Gardening link on other social networks or across the fediverse please also include the hastag #KudamonoEditor in the post. Including the puzzle picture will usually enhance your post.

On PuzzleSquareJP, if Bonsai Gardening is not yet registered, please register the genre there before posting. Please then for interlinking.

Please with any issues and suggestions.

There are specific instructions for live conflict highlighting and input issues, for improving the rule panels or reporting non-uniquenesses.

For any other bugs, please:

  • describe what you were trying to do,
  • what happened instead, and
  • send the current url (plus any visible error logs and possibly, supplementary screenshots).

You may check whether your bug is already covered by the unit tests (it may take a few seconds before the page loads fully). Any yellow boxes indicate a failed test. "Performance issues" currently indicate all passed tests, slow or not.

If you find a situation where the live conflict highlighter is not working as you'd expect (e.g. too aggressive, incorrect), please send a small test case url plus a brief explanation of what should be happening instead.

A good test case includes the smallest possible board, with the fewest possible elements, that is still able to unambiguously reproduce the issue.

For interface issues related input modes, or more generally to clicking/touching/dragging, keyboard shortcuts, etc… please submit an input test case, as detailed in the Inputs Initiative.

For simple typos/rewordings, a short email suffices. For more substantial changes, please refer to the rule panels guidelines.

If you find a non-uniqueness in one of the puzzles, please first check whether you are able to contact the puzzle author directly to request a fix.

If that seems impractical, please submit either:

  • a corrected, unique puzzle url (with solution), if you are able to suggest a fix (preferred); or
  • a puzzle url solved up to the point where the puzzle stops being unique; or
  • multiple urls (one per solution)

First and foremost thanks to Lucas (Le Slo) for inventing this genre, for trying most of the puzzles, and in general, for crafting puzzle gems.

Second, thanks to Andrea Gilbert (Clickmazes) for posing a very interesting question which got me interested in designing Bonsai Gardening, and for testing several puzzles.

Worth mentioning that Ethan created the rule for the hummingbirds (as bonsai buddies) and Karoo that of the slybons, initially meant as puns.

Finally, thanks to Portponky, Daniel Hurtado (knexator), dohz, Arvi Teikari (Hempuli), Deusovi, Colin (Strangecreation), Joseph Mansfield (sftrabbit), tjm, Jack Kutilek, William Hu (TheGreatEscaper), Cristopher Wells (Toph Wells), Pitogiyo, Cantaloupe, Karoo, Zachary Barbanell (TheZachMan) and Noa Hoffmann (Noa Cube Studio) for varied levels of feedback at different moments!

2023-11-05 Markers are allowed at the bottom edge, and their style was changed to improve visibility. Thanks spectria limina! 2023-12-13 The variant loop-allowed was added to Arvi Teikari (Hempuli)'s looping puzzle, as suggested by PinkHoodie 2024-04-10 Three very good unit test cases found by PinkHoodie were added, and the underlying issue was corrected (cause: longsegment loop detection inappropriate; just segment should be used for branching genres) 2025-04-07 Encoding Bonsai was redesigned to include pots instead of letting the tree escape from the board, thus enabling absent tiles,as requested by 5381. Old puzzles should be upgraded automatically (otherwise, please reencode them).