Water is crucial to almost everyting I am discussing in this guide. Water helps cleaning contaminated areas and it is needed for a thriving and self-dependent ecosystem. Therefore one task is to getting water to the places.

There are two types of wells in the game: The major springs which have to be restored by the player and have wellstones and the minor round wells which exist in higher numbers and have to be cleaned first.

The latter, the minor wells, have a very limited capacity. Yes, they replenish even after you drink them dry (literally).

However, using a pump starting from within such well can sometimes yield an astonishing amount of water (more than the stated capacity would imply). You can use a pump or a chain of pumps to get water out of them continuously but trying to get this water more than like 30m away from the well is unlikely to succeed. So using them to water a whole garden will not work, but they work nice as additional water support, especially when combined with root sigils.




Naias temple is surrounded by a ring of water. It is not a spring so you cannot enhance it or use wellstones (and for the same reason you cannot make a frog stay there, for instance). However it can still serve as a strong source of water in case you plan to create a garden around it or make the desert around it become an oasis otherwise.

Since you cannot use wellstones, water pumps and a system of channels leading the water away from the temple is the way to go. The temple seemingly produces unlimited water - at least I haven't managed to lower the water level of its water basin by pumping water out of it into he desert.



It's quite obvious that you can extend the range of a major spring by creating and placing additional wellstones. They can be placed up to 60m (70m if you well is blessed) away from the main spring.

Less obvious is that you the can place more wellstones an additional 50m from the first wellstone, another wellstone again 50m further and so on. Thus you can, in practice, create a daisy chain of wellstones away from the main spring in any direction, limited only by the absolute number of wellstones you can add to a main spring. For a blessed spring this is the maximum of 8 wellstones - not a lot but enough for like a 400m reach around the major spring.


The number of required resources for getting a blessed spring is pretty low - you need 2xJade to purify the well and one pearl and 3xGranite to bless it in addition to food and water, both of which should be readily available if you dig out some cakes in the desert and have your bottle filled. Given that, your first step should be to bless all the wells you intend to use either for gardening or for restoration of surrounding bare or burnt/polluted areas.

Tip: When moving a wellstone you cannot fly. (You cannot put the wellstone in your backpack.) This can be a bit problematic in a maze like the salt flats. But remember, you can still build bridges over gaps and then walk over them to get the wellstone almost anywhere.

Pro tip: There's a slight bug in the game which you can exploit to reach an even greater area:
Once you have placed your wellstones in (approximately) a row described above, you can move the second last (e.g. the 7th of the eight) another 50m past the last one, essentially detaching these last two wellstones from the rest of the chain. This works because seemingly the game uses the wellstones's initial position to determine if they are properly chained. This increases the radius you can clean around a major spring by another 50m, but be aware that once you did this step you will only be able to move these "detached" wellstones to places where they are again connected to a well - directly or via other wellstones.


Once you have unlocked the rain storms - that is after you have revived most of the Salt Flats as required by Styrge - then it is possible to create ecosystems which can survive even without wells.


The image above shows how I transformed the desert around one of the former magician's houses above the canyons into what looks like a holiday villa with a garden.

It's actually not that difficult, just a bit time consuming:

You start by planting dunegrass, e.g. wild dunegrass works well. You can plant this species anywhere as long as the ground is free of corruption (is decontaminated). Water the dunegrass, sing to enhance the growing speed and add some fertilizer to get the maximum possible growth.

Plant plenty of root sigils. You will have to water the area regularly while growing plants, and using root sigils spares you the tedious task of watering every plant individually. Soon you will see patches of soil appear in the desert.

On the soil plant some trees that can later serve as mother trees (sunburst shrubs, oracle tree, witchwood and/or skytorch tree, depending on the biome(s) you intend to grow.

Pro tip: Plant the trees elsewhere where they already have perfect conditions and enough water, convert them to mother trees and then move them to the area to restore. This can speed up restoration considerably and saves you from watering these trees manually too.

Once you have the suitable ground (like mash, meadow, forest or alpine), grow plants that either need few water (typically but not always wild variants) or promise to enhance the water situation. Keep in mind that trees are important as they produce shadow, thereofre reduce the evaporation of water from the soil below, thus creating a more favourable micro-climate for the plants below. (And they look nice, of course.)

Once you have covered the whole area you can leave it alone for a while and check what happens. (Don't worry, most plant species will not die when there's not enough water, they will just stop growing.) Check once in a while if there are areas that have become a desert again. If so, water the dunegrass (or the root sigils) in order to make it become a green area once more and add a tree or other plants to this spot to reduce the loss of water. (Vegetation can store water from rainfalls, so the more vegetation you have the more water can be stored, keeping the ground green.)


Pro tip: When satisfied, put your trees and major plants into hibernation. This way they use less water and will survive even potential long periods without rainfall. Typically this will not be necessary but it can ease things. An additional benefit is that the plants will produce no or almost no seeds, so your garden will not get completely overgrown with, lets say, sunburst shrubs, while you are not attending to it.

One question yet unanswered was whether it is possible to bring a real wellstone to one of the three restored magician's houses on the plateaus above the canyons. It's not that a wellstone is absolutely needed up there - as I described in the previous section it's possible to create a garden which lives on rainater only and there's typically a small well nearby that can yield additional water. But what if...

My curiosity was piqued.

If you have plenty of time to spare and want to try it yourself, don't read this section any further. If you want a tip that come handy in a few other situations as well, read on.

There's a few issues trying to get a wellstone near the magician's houses. Two of the houses are basically isolated with no major spring anywhere in the vicinity. Which leaves the central one which also has the advantage that there are three portals near it, so it's not a day tour to transport materials back and forth.

Now, this house sits on a plateau that's around an estimated 140m above the canyon floor and ~80m above some slightly higher, narrow terrace in the east and south. Most of the plateau is surrounded by straight vertical rock columns which prevent any terrain modification and do not allow to place wellstones on them either. It's easy to "plant" a wellstone on the lower terrace east of the plateau but this didn't help as it was impossible to bridge the vertical gap of the remaining ~80m with wellstones that can only be 50m apart from each other (calculated as circle, so both limited horizontally and vertically).

Well, I found a way and it "just" worked in the fourth attempt. First, here 's the proof:


On the north side of the plateau there's a major spring and southwest of it there is a larger vertical wall that is not rock but soil, or at least no solid rock column. My idea was to bridge the vertical gap with two or more wellstones at different heights. Trying to dig down from the top with the Earthwright's chisel only worked for like 2m, then there was rock beneath the soil. This left me with just one other idea: Create a mountain and place the wellstones along its slope and on top.

It took me 2 real-life days to create the mountain, and I had to make it wider and higher several times. The raise tool of the Earthwright's chisel did most of the job, but it is tedious work, be warned. Finally I ended up with a mountain where the top was so narrow (on the vertical rock wall) that I could hardly stand there and place the second wellstone. The first one was already placed halfway down towards the major spring.
I was actually about to give up after this attempt, but then I realized I could just (and I really mean just) place the third wellstone on the lowered edge of the plateau's rim and then the last one towards the back of the magician's house.

By now you're probably curious how the end result looks. Well. here it is:

The waterfall you are seeing is actually the third wellstone that's kind of hanging on the edge of the upper cliff wall. Almost halfway down, on top of that steep pile of soil there's the second wellstone, you can see the light of a lantern I placed next to it. And further down where you also can see water that's the result of the first wellstone. The major spring it is connected to is outside the image.

And the following screenshot shows "Mt Fuji" in it's fully glory. I guess you can estimated what time it took to pile up that mountain.:



If anyone knows a simpler solution to the problem, let me know. I don't claim this is the best one.

Revitalizing a landscape in Wildmender consists of following main steps:

1. Destroy the phantom/wraith outposts (marked on the map)
   
2. Destroy the rose-colored crystals as they spread impureness and "corruption" (pollution).
   
3. Clean the land from burning lava
   
4. Clean the land from the black crust and from pollution
   
5. Re-plant the land and create a thriving ecosystem

Let's look into these three steps in more detail:


You can (and have to) destroy some of the phantom outposts already early in the game. However there are many which require the enhanced Earthwright's Chisel as provided by Arx in an end-game task.

Destroying all the phantom outposts in one landscape (canyons, salt flats, mountains) unlocks the final (and optional) landscape restoration tasks to be given to you by the gods. If you haven't completed these, do this first as it eases any further steps.

Once you have removed the phantom outposts, also get rid of the large rose-colored crystals as they pollute the soil around them and thus prevent any clean-up in their vicinity. Tip: If you clean up a plateau, also check there isn't a crystal on a lower (or higher) level and thus out just out of sight. Once you can fly you will easily spot the crystals from the air.

Note that removing the crystals before removing the phantom outposts will not have a lasting effect as the phantom outposts re-create the crystals over time.


When you can use wellstones to clean the land from corruption you can largely skip this section, but when using mushrooms or plants to remove the poison, the following is relevant:

Typically there will be spots of glow-red lava where the crystals and the phantom outposts have been. Using the Flame Talisman crafted with Naia, you will be tought by Arx how it can be used to clean things like dirty/polluted wells and polluted soil.
The process of cleaning a larger burning area can be a bit time consuming, even when using the Talisman's "Firestorm" function, but it helps a lot with the next steps.

Pouring or diverting water to run over glowing lava will also cool it down, btw. but the former is only suitable for small areas and the latter requires a nearby wellstone, so is not possible everywhere.


The fastest way to get rid of the black cursts is definitely to us the power of the wellstones. If there is polluted land nearby wellstones show a sign to release some frozen essence. You will want to do so as it drives away (parts of) the surrounding black lava crusts. Sometimes you can or have to repeat this step until the sign is shown no more. (Be sure there is no rose-colored crystal in the vicinity any more that will restore the black crust.)

If the black crust is too far off from the main spring, use wellstones and the "wellstone daisy chaining" described earlier to build a chain of wellstones reaching towards the badlands and use the closest wellstone(s) to perform the cleaning with the frozen essence. (If needed you can afterwards reposition the wellstones in order to purify areas in a different direction from the main spring.)


There is a second, way more tedious, way to get rid of the black crusts and the pollution (poison) associated with it: There are certain plants which help to revive such areas. However, without a well nearby you will have to water these plants in order to see progress, and it is still a slow process as new plants have to grow.

The most useful plant species are both hybrids, that is, you have to breed them first and thus have to first find out how to breed them. (I'm not gonna spoil this part.)

The plant species' in question are:

• The monument mushrooms are the most important of all. The journal states that this species absorbs and neutralizes corruption, so this another piece in the puzzle. And indeed, you can even plant monument mushrooms directly on corrupted black soil, and a full-grown monument mushroom is much faster in absorbing the "corruption" and restoring the soil than the cleansing dune grass is. You might want to grow some in advance near some well and later re-locate them.
  
• Cleansing dune grass, when planted near the border of black soil, will push that border away. It is also one of very few species that is immune to the corruption (poison) in this black soil.
  
• Planting rootbeard fungus also helps, specifically the "Absorbing rootbeard fungus". I cannot say it works alone but it seems to help in difficult cases e.g. around the former tree of life in the mountains.

Creating a sustainable ecosystem which ideally expands on its own depends on following factors:

• Having a souce of water in the wicinity and the root sigils to help to spread the water to dry areas a bit off from the wells. It is possible to create ecosystems that depend on rain only but in my experience they do not expand on their own, they continue to exist at best (unless watered manually).
  
• One or more mother trees fitting to the landscape. Having, for example, a marsh mother on the salt flats will enable other plants of this ecosystem to grow well and thus reproduce and geminate on their own, spreading the ecosystem outwards. This might also work with "foreign" ecosystems (e.g. marsh in the canyons) but maybe not as good. Note that you might, now and then, create another mother tree to expand the fertile area in which the ecosystem can grow. (Saplings of mother trees do not or not typically produce mother trees when they are planted or germinate, despite being shown as distinct "mother seeds".)
  
• An initial set of plants or saplings for plants suitable for this ecosystem

If you have completed the main story you'll know that there is a heavily polluted area on the map, the area where once stood the tree of life. Many players have wondered if this area can be cleaned from the corrupted soil and be restored. Some have concluded it cannot.

As far as I have tested it is possible to clean this area as well as any other. However, due to the fact that you cannot use the decontamination magic of major springs, you have to do it the hard way ... using vegetation. This will take several days and is a grinding process, so be warned.

The challenges are that there is little water availalble (but there are wells which provide just enough) and that there is no major spring anywhere in the vicinity, so even wellstone chaining will only bring water to the upper slope overlooking the devastated area. (That's better than nothing ...) Plus, the pollution is rather strong.

Once you have cleared the area around the portal from glowing lava (and thus cleaned the well there) you will notice some small patches of arable desert soil. Use these as a starting point and grow cleansing dunegrass and monument mushrooms.


Actually you can can plant mushrooms and root sigils anywhere, even on badland (lava). They are tough and if you have enough seeds (spores) and provide enough water, you can clean larger patches in parallel.

Anyway, the patches will quickly get larger you can plant more dunegrass and mushrooms or relocate some from somewhere else on the map to speed things up. Monument mushrooms will clean up the surrounding area much faster and are able to clean up areas closer to the center of the polluted area where cleansing dunegrass fails to to this work in a reasonable time frame. I also used the absorbing rootbeard mushroom in conjunction with the monument mushrooms but honestly I don't know if it really makes a difference. But it feels like it does. 😉


There is a well hidden beneath this particular portal (in the default map). Once cleaned it provides enough water for quite some area around the portal. You should plant plenty of root sigils to get the water even further out. I have a triangle network of dozens of root sigils spanning the area between the wells in this area. Be sure to clean all the other minor wells - around half a dozen of them - in the area, they are welcome additional sources of water.


One thing you should take care of: If you see bare grey rock patches somewhere in this area, do not assume they are clean. The opposite is usually true. Rock surfaces are not cleaned by surrounding mushrooms and plants, only soil/lava is. What you should to is to take your spade and slightly raise the ground starting from an area outside the rock patch and then going inwards. This will make soil appear over the rock and it will reveal whether it is clean soil or contaminated black crust - in this place typically the latter. Only then the cleaning process can start. Once cleaned for some time, you can lower the terrain again if you prefer.

Maybe you wonder: Is it really that straightforward? Yes, it is. The monument mushrooms and their big cleaning capacity make the difference at this location, and without them I'd say it is impossible or close to impossible.

Still, it takes a lot of time and you certainly can do something more useful with your time, e.g. go to your local park or river or forest in real life and clean it from human garbage ...

Tip: At this location it became obvious to me that a disappearing black crust does not mean that the soil is already completely decontaminated. It happened regularly that, once I moved the cleaning monument mushrooms further out, patches of black crust would re-appear on the supposedly cleaned area or that other planted species there got marked as "poisoned". To be sure to remove all the "corruption" let the mushrooms grow for an extended time period (and plant a few more where you still notice local corruption). I resorted to planting two rows of mushrooms outwards, so I would always take the innermost ones and move them further outward to areas on the edge of the black crust. Also, I left some of the mushrooms spread over the supposedly clean area to be sure it stays clean.

Here's the result of all this tedious work: The area is clear of black curst, apart from some very steep slopes around it. A lot of mushrooms to ensure it stays healthy and the trees have been revived or planted to look nice. It's not exactly a garden (yet), but a thriving mushroom forest at least.

This chapter contains some tips that might not be obvious for beginners.


You can only build a short wooden bridge, maybe 4 m long. But once built, when you are on it, you can extend the bridge it two times, thus creating a bridge that is like ~12m long at maximum.
And maybe you can create two such bridges from both sides of a canon and align them well so essentially you have a ~24m long bridge.


Another tip for bridges, paths, pipes and stone walls is to let bees do the work of repairing them after storms or wraith attacks. Just place worker bee sigils at regular intervals along the walls or paths and on one end of a bridge and you don't have to worry about decaying structures any more.


The water pumps are not that comfortable to use but they can be helpful to transport water uphill or to places you cannot reach by placing a wellstone. Sometimes it can be useful to even use two pumps in parallel to have a higher water flow - that is, if the water source provides enough water.

The water pipes laying on the ground looks rather ugly, and they also get damaged by storms or wraith attacks. So why not put them under the earth and have them safe and invisible? It's not that difficult: Dig a trench (e.g. using the chisel tool), place the pipes (and possibly the pump itself) there and then raise or flatten the terrain around this are until the pipes are buried under the raised soil.

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At some gardens I wanted to place a statue of, lets say, the deer, but I wanted to hide the round statue base. Well, it is possible: Dig a hole as large and deep as the statue base using the spade's "Q" action to flatten the terrain around the center. Then place the staue base in this hole an add the statue onto it. Then again use the "flatten" action ("Q") to level the ground from the outside towards the status until the whole base is just covered with a thin layer of earth and only the statue itself is visible.

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Might be obvious, but small lamps can make your statues appear in a warm or cool tone, lit from above or below just as you prefer. And they create a spotlight in your garden, drawing the attention of the visitor towards the statue.

In general, colorful lights can create all sorts of great effects and moods.

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Once you wear the pearl bracelet you can pick up even the larges of tress (and shrink them to a comfortable backpack to walk around with). You can take this to your advantage and pick up a tree or plant that, for example, grew its roots over a path. Then you walk around the original spot and place it again. With some luck the tree will have another shape or orientation and the root will, for instance, be no longer in the way of your path.


During early gameplay I considered "hibernation" a useless function of the game, but now that I've extensively created gardens I know its value:

• Plants don't produce seeds and thus don't produce saplings on places where you don't want them to grow.
  
• They don't clutter the surrounding area with seeds, thus keeping the garden "cleaner".
  
• Hibernating plants use less water and are resistant to damage, thus they make your garden easier to maintain, given the regular wraith attacks.
  
• When hibernating plants don't grow old and disappear so quickly.
  
• You can have plants stay in their juvenile or early adult size and form for decoration purposes, for instance if you want an Oracle tree but one that isn't as huge as an old one.

Essentially it's like preserving your garden by putting it into a freezer. ;-)


Instead of creating ponds and channels throughout your garden or oasis you can as well use root sigils to transport the water to plants that don't have direct access to water bodies. You can even "daisy-chain" two sigils to extend the area that can be watered this way.

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Did I forget something? Did you find a mistake? Do you have some additional tips to share? Let me and others know in the comments section.