[ARCHIVED] Quality of plants not/very slowly progressing/ No evolve

This has been happening to me as well. Definitely looks like this something to do with the Seasons patch. I don't have any expansions, game packs, or anything like that in the game. Still, my gardener sim has reached level 10 and has only been able to evolve one plant within the span of several weeks, a plant that began growing day one. Fertilizer does seem to be working, though.

Edit: Okay, just realized this, but it looks like my game is operating with the Seasons schedule despite not having Seasons installed. The first week or two in-game, plants didn't need to be watered. They also weren't progressing at all, really.. There were no weeds or bugs, either. Back then I only had the starter seed packs, though. Now, (roughly three or four weeks in) plants do need watered, weeded, and sprayed, and some are progressing. The progression of quality does seem pretty uneven. For example, while most plants are at the halfway point of the first level of quality, only one of my lilies shows this much and the rest just started going up. Not sure if they'll stay like that.

I don't know how the Seasons pack actually works, but it sounds like I started off in winter and then spring or summer. It's worth mentioning at this point that this wasn't a compleletely fresh game. I'd already been playing for a good amount of time on another family in Willow Creek. That's why I started in winter, I guess? Not sure if TS4 starts in summer, but TS3 did, so... I'm assuming it's the same thing. Winter overall just seems like a weird place to start off.  Anyways, I think this is the problem, because now plants are progressing much more over a smaller amount of time.