My firs keep dieing.

[farmchamp]

Everytime I want to plant a tree, they don't sprout, they die. What do I do? Am I just unlucky and should keep trying?

[DarkSage]

They die if you leave them on the herbalist table too long

[kobnach]

Everytime I want to plant a tree, they don't sprout, they die. What do I do? Am I just unlucky and should keep trying?

The time they take to sprout and the chance of them dying depends on your personal beliefs. If you were fully nature, it would take 2 RL hours, and all would sprout. If you were fully industry, they'd all die, and I'm not sure how long it would take, but probably around 6 RL hours. And if you are perfectly balanced between them, it takes about 4 hours and you'll find that 4 survive on average - but that's a long term average.

Once they sprout, you have 8 hours to plant them; otherwise they die. I believe this is 8 RL hours - and of course the game must be up. One night the game crashed just as I planted the first of my 12 trees; it stayed down so long I went to bed - and was amazed to find my trees still alive when I got back to it the next day. I think it was a long downtime.

[farmchamp]

So I can't put them on my table, close the game and wait overnight, unless I sleep less than 10 hours? Hmmm. Or does that have to be actual game time?

[kobnach]

So I can't put them on my table, close the game and wait overnight, unless I sleep less than 10 hours? Hmmm. Or does that have to be actual game time?

It's clock time, whether or not you are logged in. If you are nature, it may be convenient to put them on your table when you start playing, and plant when you leave - if you are like may and often stay on from (game) sunrise to (game) sunset, i.e. 4 hours.