Rexona's Nature Nurture brings real virtual gardening to Facebook

Tired of controlling virtual characters in your Facebook games? Why not try controlling a real gardener?

Rexona's Nature Nurture is pretty unique, as far as Facebook promotions go. The "game," such as it is, is simply a live video feed (containing four selectable angles) of a gardener among dozens of plants. You "play" using on-screen buttons to command the gardener to perform basic plant maintenance tasks like fertilizing, watering, trimming, misting and even adding earthworms. Then you simply watch as the gardener works through the queue of commands. It's a lot like Farmville, except instead of gaining levels and coins, you gain the satisfaction of helping maintain real plants.

You also get the satisfaction of watching this lone gardener as he goes slowly crazy working among the plants. As I played, I managed to get my gardener, Carlos, to do a set of manic jumping jacks (pictured), play some smooth jazz music and sing along to a medley of Beatles songs. It's like improv theater mixed with gardening mixed with gaming mixed with understated advertising, and the combination is totally great. Try it out.