Gem

For the version in Plants vs. Zombies Adventures, see gems.''
 * ''Not to be confused with diamond from Plants vs. Zombies.

Gems are items in Plants vs. Zombies 2 used for boosting plants in the Zen Garden and for purchasing gem premium plants, Sprouts, and some plant Costumes in the Costume Shop. 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
 * Found in piñatas.

Purchasable plants

 * Ghost Pepper (no longer available)
 * Homing Thistle
 * Sweet Potato (no longer available)
 * Hurrikale
 * Fire Peashooter
 * Dandelion (no longer available)
 * Lava Guava

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 to have value for unlocking new pots in Zen Garden or for future gem premiums.

It is best not to spend gems in the Zen Garden, as you can simply set your device's clock ahead several hours or use Bernie the Bee in the Zen Garden to bypass waiting.

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 don't like playing Endless Zones, you can replay some levels of worlds that have great cloud density of zombies. The best choices for this are the levels from Big Wave Beach and Frostbite Caves, since they usually have four flags and lots of zombies.

Update History

 * In the 2.1.1 update, gems were introduced along with the Far Future world.
 * 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.
 * Sometimes there will be a glitch that almost every zombie in a level will drop a gem when killed, instead of only a few zombies.
 * In Summer Bundle, there is a glitch that the gem will be replaced by "X" if the player does not have any sprouts yet.