Gardenscapes: How to Beat Level 153 and Find All Gnomes

To beat Level 153 in Gardenscapes, prioritize matches along the bottom of the board to trigger cascades and expose the hidden gnomes buried beneath double-layered grass. Because every patch of double grass requires two hits to clear, standard single-tile matches will exhaust your limited move count. Focus on creating explosives, pairing power-ups together, and using Rainbow Blasts to strip the most common colors off grass tiles.

Clearing Double Grass and Opening the Board

The board starts congested with multi-layered grass, severely limiting your ability to create special tiles in the opening turns. Gnomes occupy various footprints, such as 1x1, 1x2, or 2x2 tiles, but their exact positions are completely concealed until you strip away the turf.

Scan the lowest rows first: Always make your initial matches at the bottom of the board. Dropping pieces downward triggers automatic cascades that weaken grass patches higher up without spending extra turns.
Ignore isolated top pieces: Matching single pieces near the top does not disturb the rest of the board. Save upper-board matches for when they directly hit grass or complete an explosive.
Open space for combinations: Clearing the lower-middle section creates the vertical drop space required to form four-piece and five-piece explosive matches.

Creating and Combining Explosives

Explosives are necessary for clearing the dense lawn efficiently because their blast radius damages all adjacent tiles simultaneously.

Explosive	Match Requirement	Best Use on Level 153
Firecracker	4 pieces in a line	Chipping away edge pieces and finishing isolated gnome tiles
Bomb	5 pieces in a T- or L-shape	Clearing 3x3 clusters of double grass in the center
Dynamite	6 pieces in a line or cluster	Stripping multiple grass layers across wide gnome footprints

Whenever possible, avoid detonating power-ups in isolation. Swapping two adjacent explosives—such as a Bomb with a Firecracker or two Bombs—greatly increases the blast radius and removes both layers of grass across multiple tiles in one move. Additionally, larger explosions fill your Rainbow Blast meter significantly faster.

Deploying Rainbow Blasts

Detonating explosives charges the Rainbow Blast meter. Once unlocked, hold the Rainbow Blast until you can use it strategically:

Target the most prevalent grass color: Before matching a Rainbow Blast with a normal piece, check which color occupies the highest number of grass-covered squares. Removing that specific color damages grass across the entire board and shuffles remaining pieces into new combo opportunities.
Combine two Rainbow Blasts: If you manage to bring two Rainbow Blasts adjacent to each other, swap them immediately. This clears a full layer from every tile on the board and detonates any active power-ups, instantly uncovering multiple gnome sections.

Late-Game Gnome Targeting

Once you reach the final 8 to 10 moves, stop making broad clearing matches across empty lawn areas. Partially uncovered gnomes will reveal their stone outlines beneath the remaining grass:

Identify confirmed footprints: Check the silhouettes to see how many squares remain for each gnome. Direct all remaining moves exclusively at tiles covering those silhouettes.
Check corners and edges: Small 1x1 or 1x2 gnomes often sit in peripheral columns where matches are difficult to form. Use Firecrackers or line-clearing explosions to hit these hard-to-reach edge tiles rather than wasting moves attempting three-piece manual matches.