There are several days as a living creature settled on the desktop of my computer. It is beautiful, bright, but fragile and open to injury, that's why it needs care and concern. It is called Azalea Red.

There is the trend for virtual everything now. What will you think of the next? Of a flower, which puts a shortcut on the desktop? The program Desktop Plant suggests to users new realistically- looking decoration—the flower growing directly on your desktop in the flowerpot.

Desktop Plant is a kind of Tamagotchi, the Japanese virtual pets that stormed the world several years ago. The only difference is that instead of pampering a variety of disgustingly cute anime pet, you get to take care of a selection of realistically drawn pot plants varying from a cactus to a maple tree.

Double-clicking on the shortcut brings a dialog box which gives you information about your plant, and you can adjust the light, water, fertilizer, etc. The shareware version will die in a week, no matter what you do. The registered version doesn't die automatically, but it can die if you don't take care of it, and also you can run several plants at once.

The flower only grows while the processor is doing nothing, but it grows slowly; I've been staring at it all day and it hasn't done anything. I also read the readme file and it turned out that it is possible to buy an automatic care system for it, so that you don't have to bother setting the water controls.

The good thing about Desktop Plant is that you can spend as much or as little time as you want on it. At any rate you have an opportunity to get knowing about the sate and condition of your plant by clicking the option "Plant Information", where you'll know the age of your plant and see whether it feels good or not.

You can tweak for ages experimenting with light and heat levels trying to discover the optimum conditions for your little plant, or you can just hit the water button a few times a day and watch your seedling slowly grow and mature.

There are a variety of upgrades available for purchase. The most basic is $10 and gives you the unlimited use of one chosen plant.

You may need to tweak your Active Desktop or web display settings in order to make Desktop Plant work. Full instructions for doing this are given in the readme file that accompanies the program.

DesktopPlant keywords: plant, desktop, virtual, life, garden, grow, flower, tree, tamagotchi, pet, nature