Disclaimer: I am aware there are other zen garden guides. However, none of them have pictures. So don’t flag me, muffins ;3
/summon ars3nic
Wha-- what was that for?! I was asleep, you muffin!
No, you were rewatching Minecraft Manhunt for the 200th time. Anyway, just read a little bit of the forums. Come on.
I was not– I don’t-- arghhh. scrolls people’s bios
I see what you mean… Alright, I’ll sacrifice my precious YouTube sleep time for a shortish guide on how to make a Zen garden! [1]
Editor, start the guide!
Editor: Ars, it’s 2am…
But we don’t talk about that :3
Sand Tracks
First off, start with a sad-looking little patch of sand, with a sad-looking little half-enderman. Make sure the terrain is set to floor and is on layer three. Insomnia is not an excuse for not layering your terrain.
Next, bust out more sand and set it to layer four. Make concentric sand rings, something like this:
Great! Sand looking less sad, the half-enderman… still sad
Quiet. That’s beside the point.
Anyway, take out some small stone props and seashells and place them in and around the rings.
There we have it: our base for the chillness we all need :3
Bamboo
To make bamboo, start with two metal poles, both tinted 55, 158, 0.
The first pole has shadow on, and the second one has shadow off. Put the shadowed one on the bottom and stack clones of the second one on top of it.
Once you have your tower, take an alien plant tinted 42, 250, 0
It should look like this:
That… looks worse than your YouTube addiction
deep breath
Shush. I don’t have a YouTube addiction.
It’s literally on your bio.
We don’t talk about that.
Anyway, place them here, at the edge of the sand patch, like this:
Ars wants to do this so they can hide in the bushes to scroll fanart
That’s not what it’s for!
Anyway, next section, Editor!
Stone Structures
Any Zen garden with a bit of dignity needs some stone structures, so we’re going to make some! I bet you can guess what prop we’re using for this…
I bet they can’t
For those of you with two braincells–
Like you
grr
–We’re using the stone prop. Stack them on top of each other in varying sizes, like this:
Why are you a ghost? Did you die or something?
No… I mean-- whatever
So just stick these in the garden wherever you want.
They removed the seashells and stuff because their ADHD brain was flipping out
Another word and you’re organizing Editor’s library for the next month.
No! I’ll be good!
Really. Anyway, we have the sand, stone, and bamboo now. Onto the water! (Which will be really easy, so I’m just putting it all in the “pathway” section.
Pathway
Format change! The final result is first.
Because your ADHD is kicking in again and you can’t force yourself to be consistent…
STAWP
So you take the “water” terrain–cue amazed gasps–and set it to layer five. Place it in the middle where the sand rings stop fitting. Next, bust out some stone props and turn off shadows. Place them in somewhat of a path pattern. You should start with the biggest stones to form a skeleton for the pathway, and slowly switch to smaller sizes. I used three different stone sizes, but you can use however many you want to make the path look more full. Don’t forget to turn off collision on the original prop unless you want a LOT of clicking into the prop menu.
If you’re lazy, have your path avoid the water, so you don’t have to do my awesome-looking bridge.
Aren’t you half-enderman? And aren’t endermen um–terribly allergic to water? You can’t be judging them for avoiding water.
You were wondering why I was a ghost earlier… unhinged and slightly guilty laughter
Sooo moving on, if you want to make the bridge, get some wood.
Heheh, I wasn’t playing Minecraft just now.
Editor: Ars, pay attention.
Fine. There are three different types of wooden planks in Minecraft Gimkit. You can use whichever type you want, depending on what fits your style and what is easier for you. Put them at a slight arch, overlapping each other a bit, over the water. Also, set them to bottom layer, so you don’t go beneath the planks and look weird. Make sure they coordinate with a pathway, or else what happened to me will happen to you.
Heheh
It’s not funny, you muffin.
Grand Finale: Torii Gate
I love these things. Like, I’m serious. I downloaded a million pictures of them and made them my wallpaper for everything along with DSMP fanart. Think that’s weird? Fight me.
Anyhow (a word I’m probably overusing), here’s how to make one to stick in the formerly sad-looking patch of sand.
Arguably still sad-looking
Arguably. And I would obviously argue against you.
To start the torii gate, place down a barrier, make it fairly thin, and turn off the border and collision. The color of the barrier is up to you, but I picked a classic red with RGB value 255, 31, 15. Clone it and place them parallel [2] to each other. Grab a black barrier and make a wide rectangle on its side. Clone it and place them slightly under the two red barriers. Place another black barrier slightly wider than the red ones and as tall as the previous black ones are wide on top of the previous black ones, connecting them to the red poles. Then copy the barriers you just placed down, tilt them, and place them so you have a rough trapezoid-ish thing.
Put it at the bottom of the torii, to get this:
From here, it’s easy cruising.
You said that about organizing Editor’s library last time. And you know how that turned out.
It was a one-time mistake, okay? I didn’t know the library was as big as the literal Buckingham Palace!
Make that Jupiter.
Arghh. Any of you guys get bugged by the voice in your head? Moving on. Get five barriers of the same shade of red we were using before, one black barrier, and one yellow barrier. Place them in an arrangement like this–
Because you’re getting lazy.
I am not. Just… uh… conserving energy.
And you all know what to do from here! Place the whole hot mess on top of the two pillars you had before, giving you this beautiful thing that I will probably take and use as my phone wallpaper. (I supersized it for visual appeal)
Other Details
Placing lanterns around the Zen garden will give it a little ancient touch. Lighting the lanterns could also play a big part in lore or summoning a god–
Like I did to you, haha
Speaking of which don’t summon gods while they’re watching YouTube sleeping. It’s not nice.
If you want cherry blossom trees, refer to the “Sakura Garden” section of this guide, written by Commander_GOAT.
Welp, I think that’s it! Back to my couch to watch Minecraft Manhunt bed to sleep!
And buy their merch so they can get the money for the therapy they desperately need!
Wait, what merch?
Editor: Remember, drop a like or constructive criticism!
Or an insult!
