Gem

For the version in Plants vs. Zombies Adventures, see Gem (PvZA).''
 * ''Not to be confused with diamond from Plants vs. Zombies and Plants vs. Zombies 2 (before the 2.1 update).

Gems are items in Plants vs. Zombies 2 used for boosting plants in the Zen Garden, purchasing gem premium plants, sprouts, and plant costumes in the store. They can also be used in the seed selection screen as an alternative way to boost plants.

How to obtain

 * Purchasing them with real money.
 * Randomly dropped by zombies when killed.
 * Mystery Gift Boxes, including ones obtained from the travel log.
 * Found in piñatas.

Purchasable plants
Squash, Torchwood, and Imitater have all become gem-purchased premium plants for a limited time, but such sales have since ended.

Usage recommendations
It is highly advised to use gems to buy premium plants, as some of them are available for a limited time only and you will not be able to buy them after the deadline. When you have brought all current gem premium plants, you can try to get more gems to be able to unlock new pots in the Zen Garden or for future plants.

It is best not to spend gems in the Zen Garden nor for costumes, as you can simply set your device's clock ahead several hours or use Bernie the Bee to bypass waiting, and costumes do nothing except decorating plants, making it worthless. In addition, most costumes can be unlocked in Piñata Parties and Mystery Gift Boxes, although the ones that are store exclusive can be purchased.

The appearance of gems depends on luck. However, gems usually appear in Endless Zones, so you can play them to get more gems. If you do not like playing Endless Zones, you can replay some levels of worlds that have a lot of zombies. The best choices for this are levels from Big Wave Beach, Frostbite Caves, or Neon Mixtape Tour, since they usually have four flags and lots of zombies.

If a gem premium plant is not available for a limited time, there is a chance that the price will lower and if you spend your gems early and the price lowers afterward, your gems will not be refunded. If you plan to not lose excessive amounts of gems, you can wait until the price of the plant in question gets cheaper.

Update history

 * In the 2.1.1 update, gems were introduced along with the Far Future world. They are the replacement for Diamonds.
 * Around October 2014, gems can now be used to buy gem-premium or limited gem-premium plants.
 * Starting from the 2.9.1 update onwards, gems can be used to buy sprouts.
 * Also in the 2.9.1 update, the rate of gem drops was heavily decreased.
 * In the 3.2.1 update, the rate of gem drops had been increased.
 * In the 3.2.2 update on March 11, 2015, gems can now be used to buy costumes.
 * In the 3.5.1 update, the rate of gem drops had been increased once more.

Trivia

 * Before the 2.1.1 update, gems did not exist, and instead diamonds took their place, and had the value of 1000. In the 2.1.1 update, gems replaced diamonds and no longer had the value of 1000, now being used for other purposes.
 * There used to be a glitch that almost every zombie in a level would drop a gem when killed instead of only a few zombies. This was fixed in 2.8.1 update.
 * In Summer Bundle, there is a glitch that the gem will be replaced by "X" if the player does not have any sprouts yet.
 * Premium plants bought with gems are only shared for the current profile.
 * The maximum amount of gems the player can have is 2,147,483,647 (231 - 1). Attempting to reach past this amount will result in the gem counter turning into the minimum negative amount (-2,147,483,648).
 * This happens because 2,147,483,647 (231 - 1) is the maximum value of signed 32-bit integer in computing, and attempting to reach a value higher than this results in an integer overflow.