Garden
[After a loading image with a rotating tree in the middle and the text "Loading..." with the three dots appearing one at a time, and then disappear when all three have been there the image shown above in the explanation will appear:]
[ Description of the image above : A piece of bare landscape is shown. At the edges there are some rocks or stones raising the level from the general level through the center of the panel. Above the middle, a little more than halfway to the to of the panel, is a light bulb sitting inside a lamp that reminds of the desk lamp from the movie Luxo Jr. The lamp shines a yellow light down on the landscape in a broad cone that jus reaches the first rock to the left, but not those to the right. The lamp just hovers in the air. In the top right corner are two gray icons. The top one has a black frame and shows an image of a lamp, tilted left as opposed to the straight position of the lamp in the image. There is a + sign below in the left corner. The second icon without a frame has a large white cross in the middle.]
[This turns out to be a web applet and using the "+ lamp" icon two more lamps can be added getting up to three. They are all adjustable both regarding position, direction, color of light and beam width. When selecting a lamp a red circle appear around it with a small circle on top that can be used to control the light color from blue to the left to red to the right. In front is a red arrow that can turn the lamp and it can also be used to change the beam width by pulling it away from the lamp or pushing it back. The lamps can be moved by just clicking on it and moving it. The other icon with a X can be used to remove the lamps (and later any object that appear in the garden). When any object is selected there is a red circle around it. When this is done the gray cross icon becomes red and can the be used to delete the selected item. When no item is selected (either because it is deleted, or by clicking in a part of the screen with no items), then the cross icon turns gray again. When all three lamps are on, then the "+ lamp" icon is faded out.]
[ If you wait (or relax, as in the title text), then a plant will grow or animals, humans and other items may appear. This could be birds, snakes, octopuses or turtles, Megan or Cueball or a birdbath, a monolith or a tall gate just as a few examples. Most of the items appear in one go, but at least the largest trees grow up with a big stem first and then adds parts later with leaves or empty branches. Also one item may appear on top of another item and for instance birds may fly in the air.]
[There is but two words in the entire comic, which appears when you grow a sign:] Sign: Sale
function u(t){return.32>t?[1,.5+.5*t/.32,.5]:.64>t?[1,1,.5+.5*(t-.32)/.32]:[.75+.25*(1-t)/.36,.75+.25*(1-t)/.36,1]}

Almost cat This animal looks like a cat with a long neck. It's the closest thing to a cat that's not actually in the cat family. Next to the section another one is drawn in front of Cueball (obvsiously it's Randall). The linsang says "Mrowl?" and Cueball says "I wan't one!"
Q: An animal I’m obsessed with is: A: The linsang, which looks almost like a cat but has this weird long neck. I find them both unnerving and adorable. I found some footage of one running; it’s like watching a cat video from a parallel universe. The linsang is related to the animal genet , and here are two videos/photos of a genet running: Genet on a rhino Genet on other things
The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by!
The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Status update: Please stand by. Status update: This is fine. Everything is fine. Status update: Everything is on fire. Status update: Searching for calendar systems in which Saturday is April 1st.
The Friday xkcd comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties [Editor's note: Everything is on fire] and has been delayed until Sunday night.
xkcd updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Protip: If you don't like how your garden is growing, you can click to prune it.
Protip: If you don't like how your garden is growing, you can click to prune it. You can copy the URL to share your garden. From other browsers, it will be view-only.
Protip: If you don't like how your garden is growing, you can click to prune it. You can copy the URL to share your garden. From other browsers, it will be view-only. Note: If you're seeing today's comic in place of your garden, change the URL from xkcd.com/#<your code> to xkcd.com/1663/#<your code>.
Protip: If you don't like how your garden is growing, you can click to prune it. You can copy the URL to share your garden. From other browsers, it will be view-only.
XKCD updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The pro tip, however, remained as the header text when displaying the Garden comic .

This was the seventh April fools' comic released by Randall . The previous fools comic was 1506: xkcloud from Wednesday April 1st 2015. The next did not come out in 2017 , but first in 2018 when 1975: Right Click was released on Sunday April 1st 2018.
This comics represents the April fools' comic of 2016, and it is Randall's celebration of April Fools' Day Friday, April 1, 2016. It represents the third time in a row that user input changes the April Fools' comic. Although in the last two 1350: Lorenz and 1506: xkcloud it was written (or drawn) input that became part of the comics. This time the user input is like a game, as the user actively adds, moves and deletes items, and new items appear based on these actions. In this way it actually more resembles the game comic 1608: Hoverboard , than the previous April Fools' comics.
Due to technical problems (or to make fools of his fans, see more about the header text below) the comic did not go live until Sunday evening (after midnight, so technically first on Monday April 4th) so there was no Friday release the week before, see more details below .
The comic begins with a loading screen with a revolving tree and the text "loading..." This is because the first time a computer loads this dynamic comic it can take a while.
Once it is loaded it displays "your Garden ", being a barren landscape, with a small pond to the left, some rocks at the far left and right, and a single lamp shining light yellow light on most of the ground. This is what is shown at the top of the explanation here. But if you leave the lights on and wait (or "relax", as the reader is told to do by the title text), then plants and other items will start to appear.
The reason it is correct to call it "your garden" is that every time this comic is loaded from scratch, a new garden will be created with a unique url-address. By saving this link (making a bookmark for it), the user will be able to return to their garden again and again. As the garden only develops very slowly this is important. (If users wish to share their garden they can do it in the table on the page for Users gardens ).
Plants appear one at a time, and sometimes it takes a long time. Only a few of the plants actually grow. For instance there are some large trees that begins as a large trunk and from there grows branches and leaves . This can sometimes happen quite fast. Most other plants just appear, the only other exception being one type of flowers. All plants, except the cactus, clearly sway in the breeze.
Also animals and building-like structures such as a monolith and birdbaths appear, together with lots of other items like office furniture with balloons swaying in the wind or even one of the Mars rovers which so often have been featured in xkcd.
On top of all this, several known characters may appear in different poses including Cueball and Megan (for instance with a sword, see here ), Ponytail (see here ) and Beret Guy from the torso and up (see here ). Megan and also Cueball can both be seen with a black hat , but it is one that "grows" on top of their heads after they first appear. However, Cueball with a black hat automatically turns into Black Hat , so he can also be said to be in this comic. There is also an unknown character, a girl on stilts with black hair in a ponytail who like plants and balloons sways in the wind . A possible origin of this girl could be the What If article Burning Pollen . The article involves a character with seasonal allergies that is trying unsuccessfully to avoid their allergen (pollen) with giant stilts.
All the items that can appear in the garden are listed below in several tables. During the first week new items kept appearing, but after the eighth day (April 12th), no new items have appeared. Also the growth rate (and thus the fun of this comic) has decreased with time (maybe due to the enormous amount of gardens that the server has to keep track of?) .
Every so often the image will refresh. You can change the number of lamps, their position, direction, beam width and the color temperature which always begins somewhere between white and yellow, but can change all the way from red to blue (See this example with one lamp selected and three colors of light). Other colors than those four may appear where two lamps' cones of different colored light overlap.
The color of light affects the growth with a strong correlation for what appears in the garden depending on the color of light , and this is not only split between red, yellow and blue, but rather 10 different colors .
Early on it became clear that pure red light results in a desert theme with cacti and turtles and pure blue light gives an aquatic theme with lots of octopuses that may also wear a black hat. For the most interesting gardens the light colors should be mixed ; see more below under Effect of light .
If this comic is scientifically accurate, that correlation will be based on photosynthetically active radiation .
Some users manage to create fantastic gardens (by using lots of time on them, pruning them at the right time and changing the light and lamp position to get what they strive for). Especially one user have created a series of amazing gardens that is posted on another xkcd forum . Here is a collection of screenshots with some of Blitz Girls amazing gardens !
The title text "Relax" can be debated. Is it to let the users know they should just sit back and relax as the garden grows.? Or should they relax and don't worry so much about how it works (not working here on explain xkcd though!)? Or is he teasing the users by giving them a garden that they need to tend to, and then telling them to relax? And also giving them many more colors than lamps... Given that this comic was supposed to come out on April 1st, there is a good chance that it is, also, to tease the users. There are actually two other title texts as well.
[After a loading image with a rotating tree in the middle and the text "Loading..." with the three dots appearing one at a time, and then disappear when all three have been there the image shown above in the explanation will appear:]
[ Description of the image above : A piece of bare landscape is shown. At the edges there are some rocks or stones raising the level from the general level through the center of the panel. Above the middle, a little more than halfway to the to of the panel, is a light bulb sitting inside a lamp that reminds of the desk lamp from the movie Luxo Jr. The lamp shines a yellow light down on the landscape in a broad cone that jus reaches the first rock to the left, but not those to the right. The lamp just hovers in the air. In the top right corner are two gray icons. The top one has a black frame and shows an image of a lamp, tilted left as opposed to the straight position of the lamp in the image. There is a + sign below in the left corner. The second icon without a frame has a large white cross in the middle.]
[This turns out to be a web applet and using the "+ lamp" icon two more lamps can be added getting up to three. They are all adjustable both regarding position, direction, color of light and beam width. When selecting a lamp a red circle appear around it with a small circle on top that can be used to control the light color from blue to the left to red to the right. In front is a red arrow that can turn the lamp and it can also be used to change the beam width by pulling it away from the lamp or pushing it back. The lamps can be moved by just clicking on it and moving it. The other icon with a X can be used to remove the lamps (and later any object that appear in the garden). When any object is selected there is a red circle around it. When this is done the gray cross icon becomes red and can the be used to delete the selected item. When no item is selected (either because it is deleted, or by clicking in a part of the screen with no items), then the cross icon turns gray again. When all three lamps are on, then the "+ lamp" icon is faded out.]
[ If you wait (or relax, as in the title text), then a plant will grow or animals, humans and other items may appear. This could be birds, snakes, octopuses or turtles, Megan or Cueball or a birdbath, a monolith or a tall gate just as a few examples. Most of the items appear in one go, but at least the largest trees grow up with a big stem first and then adds parts later with leaves or empty branches. Also one item may appear on top of another item and for instance birds may fly in the air.]
[There is but two words in the entire comic, which appears when you grow a sign:] Sign: Sale
function u(t){return.32>t?[1,.5+.5*t/.32,.5]:.64>t?[1,1,.5+.5*(t-.32)/.32]:[.75+.25*(1-t)/.36,.75+.25*(1-t)/.36,1]}

Almost cat This animal looks like a cat with a long neck. It's the closest thing to a cat that's not actually in the cat family. Next to the section another one is drawn in front of Cueball (obvsiously it's Randall). The linsang says "Mrowl?" and Cueball says "I wan't one!"
Q: An animal I’m obsessed with is: A: The linsang, which looks almost like a cat but has this weird long neck. I find them both unnerving and adorable. I found some footage of one running; it’s like watching a cat video from a parallel universe. The linsang is related to the animal genet , and here are two videos/photos of a genet running: Genet on a rhino Genet on other things
The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by!
The xkcd April 1st comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Status update: Please stand by. Status update: This is fine. Everything is fine. Status update: Everything is on fire. Status update: Searching for calendar systems in which Saturday is April 1st.
The Friday xkcd comic is currently experiencing technical difficulties [Editor's note: Everything is on fire] and has been delayed until Sunday night.
xkcd updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Protip: If you don't like how your garden is growing, you can click to prune it.
Protip: If you don't like how your garden is growing, you can click to prune it. You can copy the URL to share your garden. From other browsers, it will be view-only.
Protip: If you don't like how your garden is growing, you can click to prune it. You can copy the URL to share your garden. From other browsers, it will be view-only. Note: If you're seeing today's comic in place of your garden, change the URL from xkcd.com/#<your code> to xkcd.com/1663/#<your code>.
Protip: If you don't like how your garden is growing, you can click to prune it. You can copy the URL to share your garden. From other browsers, it will be view-only.
XKCD updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The pro tip, however, remained as the header text when displaying the Garden comic .
