Mama and her friends are back for another round, but she’s put down her spatula and changed aprons. It’s time to go outside and do a little (or a lot) of gardening! For those who missed Mama’s cooking lessons, there’s no need to worry; gardening and cooking have little in common except for the rare occasion that you grow what you eat. If you did attend Mama’s culinary school of delights, you may be in for a surprise — gardening (in this horticulturist’s opinion) is a lot more fun than cooking.

Gardening Mama makes the assumption that you’re familiar with Mama and her ever-worsening accent; the tutorial is nearly nonexistent. This isn’t to say that it’s a difficult game to pick up and play, but if you don’t know your way around the previous Cooking Mama interface, it’s best to practice whenever given the chance. (You’re always given the chance.)

You’ll begin your training with a menu of six options: Let’s Get Growing, Decorate the Garden, Make It Fancy, Cute Treasure Chest!, Let’s Play Together and Options. While decorating the garden and making “it” fancy may sound delightful, you can’t do either until you’ve done some gardening, so it’s best to start with gardening 101.

There are multiple areas in the garden — the flower garden, the rose garden, the vegetable garden and the fruit garden. Not every area is open to you at once, and not every plant is available. It would be overwhelming. Unlike previous titles in which the goal was to cook a dish and be finished, Gardening Mama has you planting seeds and then nurturing plants to full health and/or harvest. This takes repeated visits and care. Once you begin to manage more than four or so immature plants, it can be quite the juggling act! But, that’s where the fun begins!

Upon entering the garden, your first task will be to choose which of two flowers to grow first: the tulip or the pansy. The choice is purely aesthetic. Each has its peculiarities — some will be bulbs, some need more water, some attract fungus, others need fertilizer ... there’s a startling array of how to manage plants.

As you succeed at each task, you’ll be scored and given a bronze, silver or gold medal along with points. Earn enough points and a new area of the garden or plant will open to you. You can choose to continue developing the flower garden and encourage the flowers to bloom as long as you can, or you can choose to move on to the fruit or vegetable gardens.

In the produce gardens, the goal is to grow the most bountiful crops possible. I will say this: Growing wine grapes is as difficult in Gardening Mama as it is in real life. I’m lucky I grew any at all! Along with your score and medals, you’ll also receive occasional presents. These can range from new outfits for Mama, different colored gardening tools, items to decorate the garden (can you say lawn gnomes?) and fertilizers.

At first, I received fertilizers that were simply varying colors. I could make blue apples or white roses. As I continued to do well, I received fertilizers specific to the fruits and vegetables. More than once I grew a pumpkin so large I couldn’t get it into the basket to receive credit! It was so frustrating!

Having played every Cooking Mama title since release, I am pleased to say that the controls for Gardening Mama are particularly responsive and tight. Only when I had to dig up a specific amount of dirt did I run into regular issues — I still can’t tell if it’s me or the game.

Any time I came upon a new move, I chose to practice first, saving me a lot of heartache and damaged plants. I also liked that growing items included some variety. Though each seed may need water, they needed different levels of water: Sometimes I had to fertilize more than once; other times I didn’t. I didn’t feel the repetition I had with the previous games.

Receiving a new house as a reward for my bountiful harvests was a welcome surprise! (As I said, no tutorial.) This gave me a goal to work toward; I found myself tending my plants with extra special care and trying to increase the size of the harvest.

Since its inception, the Mama series has delighted fans with the quirky Japanese-American fusion, beautiful graphics and inventive use of the stylus. I think Gardening Mama is the best of the series to date. It has all of the charm of the originals but adds a time management element that raises the bar a needed notch. I heartily recommend this game to gamers of any age. If you can hold a stylus, you can grow a flower.