How to Play

Arboretum

2-4 players 30-30 min 7.2 Board Game Geek Rating

Players build garden paths by strategically placing numbered tree cards in adjacent chains of increasing values. Each turn involves drawing two cards, placing one in your arboretum, and discarding another. Victory requires careful hand management—only players holding the highest value cards of each tree color can score their matching paths, earning points based on path length.

Published 2015

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Prepare the deck

Use 10 suits of 8 cards each, ranked 1-8

Adjust for player count

For 4 players use all cards; for 3 players remove 2 suits; for 2 players remove 4 suits

Determine first player

Whoever last watered a plant goes first

Deal starting hands

Each player receives 7 cards

Create the draw pile

Place the remainder of the deck face-down in the centre of the table

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Draw two cards

Take cards one after the other from the top of the deck OR the top of any player's discard pile

Play a card to your arboretum

Place one card from your hand adjacent (vertically or horizontally) to another card already in your arboretum

Discard a card

Place one card from your hand to your personal discard pile

Maintain hand size

At the end of your turn, your hand should always have exactly 7 cards

Access public information

Discard piles are public information and can be viewed by all players

Winning

How to claim victory.

Trigger game end

The player who draws the last card from the deck finishes their turn, then scoring occurs

Determine scoring rights

Compare cards remaining in players' hands for each suit

Identify valid paths

A scoring path of a suit begins and ends with that suit, with each card adjacent to and of greater value than the previous card

Calculate path scores

Add the number of cards in the path, plus +1 point if path begins with a 1, plus +2 points if path ends with an 8, plus +1 point per card if path is at least 4 cards long and all cards are the same suit

Score the most valuable path

For each suit you have scoring rights to, score only the highest-value path

Break ties

If tied on total points, the player with the most species (suits) in their arboretum wins