Land, Japan, lost hours, tea garden

Sq metres of SL land bought: 1536 (good, bad, good, bad, can't decide); Hours spent landscaping same: lots (v. bad); Number of trees bought: 32 (good); Number of tea houses bought: 1 (v. good); Number of hot tubs bought: 1 (good); Number of carp bought: 1 (etc. etc. etc.); Number of RL pounds squandered on same: prefer not to count (v.v. bad)

Was inevitable that after upgrading to premium would fall down slippery slope in to ownership. Found that could not wait 5 weeks or so for island to arrive, and also deluded self with idea that having on land would be good practice. As noted before, all you do in SL is right click land, select buy and confirm and it's bye-bye Linden Dollars.

Of course is just another deep black hole into which I pitch time and money.

On the other hand: this is my new home in SL - isn't it cute? Had started with minimalist ambitions - some homespun sheets of semi-translucent glass - a strategically placed tree - a modernist chair artfully arranged.

However, once I saw the tea house (really nice quality) it was hey ho for a Japanese tea garden with a hot tub, 2 linked ponds, a rather expensive carp, lots of trees, chinese lanterns, iris, bamboo and a tasteful japanese tea table set. Eventually had to stop when ran out of prims (for non landowners, only get small rations of prims allowed per sq metre). Get something like 15,000 with the island, but I can see will still run out v. quickly.

At moment fear will have to chop down one of the trees, since am having to go offsite to even open a bottle of sake because of having reached prim maximum.

Am calling site "Sakura", Japanese for cherry blossom. Top pic is house sign have made. Actually 3 problems with this. 1) In fact no cherry blossom in gardenment, just plum tree. However think that one of the tatami mat edgings in the tea house has got sakura on. 2) Plaque says "Welcome" but in fact am currently not welcoming at all since have set up land so only about 4 avatars are allowed on. 3) Because of aforementioned prim problem, cannot actually put up plaque until take down something else.

Birch trees are prime candidates, since the big ones have over 20 prims. However are really good quality (from the HEART garden centre) unlike the 4-prim plum tree which sways around disturbingly and turns odd colours. Am going to have to replace it with something better.

Also has been pointed out that a strawberry plant is poking up through the tea house (had though it was amusing "dropped leaf" detail) and the garden is somewhat pose ball city (these can be seen in 2nd pic, taken from hot tub), although I should stress these are DECENT poses, drooping hands idly in water, sunbathing on lawn etc.

The Nara Tea House is from Mezzanine BTW. And I haven't planted all the trees; the remaining ones will come in useful on the island.