The Search for The Singing Sunflower

Last night I decided to try the new “Lawn of the Dead” quest-line in Hillsbrad Foothills because I wanted my Druid to have a singing sunflower pet. It was as simple as that. I had seen them around Org and thought they were utterly adorable. I had this picture in my head of my overgrown cow-girl walking on her hind-legs with a giant sunflower singing to her. The very thought of it made me giggle—how ridiculous! How entertaining for my little ones! SQUEEE!! I WANT!!! (Okay, so I’m a 41 year-old woman having a second childhood, got a problem with that?)
From what I understand, the Plants vs. Zombies mini-game is based on a game created by Pop Cap. The game is a top-rated download and loved by some of the Blizzard Developers. Blizzard and Pop Cap have a partnership already developed, so permission to use their game for a quest chain was easy to get.
This was the first time I’d been to Hillsbrad since the new patch, so I was surprised to see how radically it had been changed. Tarren Mills has been rebuilt with oddly beautiful purple and black Forsaken Architecture. Wild Horses now roam in the fields between Tarren Mills and Southshore. Speaking of Southshore, there are no humans living there anymore—it is now a ruined slime pit. For fun, I ended up picking up a small quest line for killing slime monsters at Southshore, and ended up delighted to kill the Slime Breeder, Chet, who looked and sounded a little like Bill Paxton’s Chet-creature in “Weird Science.” (Did Kelly LeBrock turn him into a turd or a part of the male anatomy? It’s been awhile, so I don’t remember exactly.) Killing off Chet was well worth the short deviation from the search for the singing sunflower.
I had sweet-talked my poor husband into going along with me on his undead warlock. As we rode along, my Tauren on her “Celestial Steed” (AKA the Sparkle Pony) and him on his bony undead horse, he suddenly stopped short and said, “You are freakin’ huge! “ We noticed that the sparkle pony grows to accommodate the Tauren’s larger body-size. I have used the mount with humans, Drenaei, gnomes, and blood elves, but never noticed it changing size before. In fact, I have a screenshot of my gnome riding the sparkle pony from a few months ago that I snapped because it amused me to see her tiny body on that big horse. I wonder if this is a change with the patch or if it simply a more noticeable change with big the bigger Tauren model? I’ll have to look into that.
Near the Hillsbrand/Arathi Border, there is a new flight point and a new building called the “Sludge Fields”. We rode around it slowly, looking at the monsters fighting undead guards in the front courtyard. Behind the building was another weird courtyard and a person in a giant purple sphere. It was one of the weirdest sites that I’ve ever seen in World of Warcraft. I’m sure that level 20-somethings would have quests here. Maybe when I’m leveling up my future goblin, I’ll bring her here.
We found the goblin quest-giver for the Plants vs. Zombies quests in front of a little hut, surrounded by a small crowd of Alliance and Horde players of different levels. That little goblin is a popular guy, it seems. I pulled up my walk-throughs on Wowhead.com and Blessings of the Grove one more time, and then started the quest chain.
The object of the mini-game is simple. You pick up little drops of sunshine for energy to plant things. You can build your plant arsenal from basic sunflowers to plants that have different attacks. The higher DPS the plant does, the more sunshine energy it requires to plant it. You have to figure out how to hold the zombies at bay with your plants and survive the attack waves. There are five of these quests in the chain that get longer and more difficult with each level.
There are several great step-by-step walkthroughs online for this quest if you want one of these. I’ll give you my strategy—okay, Hubby’s strategy: Only plant Sunflowers, Spitters, and Lashers for the final two quests. I did it in this order:
1) Plant 3 sunflowers in the back row.
2) Plant 2 spitters directly in front of them.
3) Plant 2 more sunflowers on the back row. (Back row is now full)
4) Plant 1 lasher near the front in the center.
5) Plant 2 more spitters in the same row as the other two, but on the ends
6) Plant 5 more sunflowers in the next-to last rows, among the spitters
7) Fill in with lashers in the front, and spitters along the back as a barrier to protect the sunflowers.
8) When the attacks come in waves, use pumpkin bombs every time they are up to weaken the larger abominations and the Warden.
Following this strategy, on the third try, I finally got my singing sunflower! Caution—the mini-game is addictive. Even now, typing this up for you, I’m itching to play it again. Luckily, I have many alts. Luckier still, there is an achievement for going back repetitively on the same toon. I believe I will be getting it in the next few weeks, maybe.
Unless I’m busy leveling my 80’s to 85, or playing my new goblin, or new Worgen, or exploring, or. . . Whew!
Thank goodness expansion packs only come out every 2 years or so! We need that much time to get bored with them.

Edit:  Wanted to include links to the two sites that helped me get my sunflower in case anyone wanted to check them out:

wowhead.com

Blessings From the Grove’s Walkthrough–Best one I’ve seen by far!