Last year, the LEGO® Botanical theme gave us 10349 Happy Plants, anthropomorphic potplants with a whimsical grin and a green hairstyle. Botanicals has been one of the big successes in the LEGO portfolio over the past few years, bringing new people to LEGO building, and bringing others back after a many-year gap. Happy Plants was one of those sets that was relatively inexpensive, simple to build, and brought a delightful end result to the display space.

Knowing that when you are on a good thing, stick to it, it would appear that “Plants in small, whimsical smiling pots” is becoming a subtheme of Botanicals with the upcoming release of 11506 Rocking Plants. Adding to last year’s pale yellow and baby blue pots are bright pink and spring yellowish green versions, this new set brings some new gimmicks. But at what expense?

This set has 253 pieces and a RRP of $AUD 29.99 / $USD22.99 / £GBP17.99 / 19.99€. It is aimed at builders aged 9 and up and set to be released on May 1st, 2026. The LEGO Group sent these over to take an early look…

Introducing Ella and Lumi?

There are two manuals and the first introduces them by name: “Hi, my name is Lumi. Im a Delosperma cooperi”; “Hi, my name is Ellie, I’m an Escheveria elegans.” I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m all for naming your pot plants, but I feel this is a bit proscriptive. Unless we have an upcoming animated series about the lives of Happy Plants, rocking out with their neighbours on the LEGO YouTube Channel…

The Elements

There are 253 pieces in two bags. The contents of bag one are predominantly light purple, including 2×4 tiles, the 2x4x1 arch elements, as well as the 2x2x1 corner arch elements. We have four 1×2 technic bricks in light purple, and a couple of macaroni tubes, bricks with a stud on the side. As well as a few reddish brown and dark brown bricks, we also get sixteen 1x1x1 quarter dome elements, appearing in bright green for the first time, along with some octagonal frames and the increasingly ubiquitous stud with clip. The most interesting element in this bag is the return of the 1980s hose in bright green. The mold has been updated in recent years, but among all variants, it has been limited to black, white, grey, yellow, and transparent yellow until now.

The yellowish green pot’s bag brings us tiles, and 2×2 arches, but none of the corner arch elements. We also have the technic bricks, macaroni tubes , and some 1x2x1 and 2x1x1 arch elements! we have a few smaller tiles: 2×2 round, ‘boat shoe’ and 1×2 to complete the set. There are around 30 green claw elements, as well as a few cones along with studs with angled handles. We have three of the new (for 2026) round frame with 5 holes, four ‘daisy’ elements in bright reddish violet and a smattering of 1×1 ‘floral’ studs..

The Build

The build is relatively straight forward, starting with the core of the pots, and using the tiles with handles to center the plant once the build is completed. Rather than focus too closely, lets take a look at a speed build…

We start with the floor of the pots, and build up the sides. Angled handles on plates will serve to lock in the plants (in due course). Then we build up front and rear panels. Our wide, spring yellowish-green pot is designed to rock back and forth: there are ‘boat tiles’ underneath, and some 1×2 cured slopes attached at the back. arms poke out at the side.

Our pink pot is slightly narrower and is designed to rock from side to side. There are a couple of inverted curved slopes underneath to allow the rocking to proceed.

The flowers are cute little builds, with the echeveria elegans building up around some green octagonal frames, with the 1×1 quarter dome brick attached.

I do appreciate the return of the old school hose element, making its first appearance in bright green in this set, and the presence of ample clip plates. It swings just a little as the pot rocks, giving it a dynamic feel.

The delosperma cooperi flowers are built around a 3 spoke core, with flowers each using 10 claws building up around the hub. Bright reddish-violet flowers top off the blooms.

The final builds are extremely cute. However, as you can see, their arms don’t easily line up the way that we saw with the original happy plants. With a little creative staggering, however, we can join them all up, but lose the rocking function at the same time.

It is a little harder to line up all of the pots, as the pink pots legs make it harder to line up the arms nicely.

But with a little shuffling and perhaps twisting a few arms, we can make it work…

At some point, I swapped the plants between the two new pots… Always a little awkward when you intend to demonstrate themin action…

Some Thoughts

One thing that I found with this set, compared to the earlier set, is its value in a ‘brick box’ – here are some bricks, sit down and build them.

When confronted with the parts for the yellow pot at an event dinner earlier this year, I found myself thinking of a helicopter build – inspired, in part, by the length of the leaves included in that set. (I’ll admit, I had an additional 2×4 tile to add in order to create this chopper). I admit that the smily faces did give me a bit of an Isle of Sodor vibe (think Thomas the Tank Engine),

My main issue is with the quarter dome bricks, which have only one point of attachment, compared with the claw/finger elements which present the chance to create a branching structure. That said, perhaps the same could be said for the use of the dark green shield elements with last year’s Happy Plants.

What would you build with these new pot plants?

The set is simple enough to build, and gives us some more delightful plants for the display.

There are a few things,however, that I found just a little annoying:

• The first is the naming of the plants – Ellie might fit in as a shortening of the Latin name, but I am less convinced about Lumi. Perhaps its just me. I’m not really into naming my plants.
• the flower builds here are certainly a step up from the Happy Plants, but might be a bit fiddly and repetitive for the older builder discovering bricks for the first time
• The next is the uneven arms, perhaps needing some modification to allow it to fit in with the earlier models, unless you want to give them an unnatural twist.
• Finally, I already mentioned the variety of elements with of limited size, with minimal connection points present in these set, to make them general creation starters.

Still, these simple, smiling plants won my heart over. These sets also provide a snack size introduction to some of the techniques used in the larger Botanical sets, and as such do provide a good springboard for people intrigued by the theme, but anxious about taking on a larger project, using completely unfamiliar techniques.

The ‘Rocking’ aspect of these plants is hard to leave alone, and I appreciate the fact that one pot goes side to side, and the other goes back and forth. Where should they go next year? Free form spinning? I have previously suggested that there is not enough spinjitzu featured in LEGO Botanicals (despite a collection of elements ideally suited for them. Perhaps the time is coming? (imagine a smartbrick incorporated in the build, squealling something akin to ‘Yahoo’ or ‘Weeee’ as the pot starts to spin?)

Despite the joy, and the rocking, I feel this set earns a 3.5 out of 5 arbitrary praise units. For many people, the positives will outweigh the negative points, and while there are aspects I feel are a bit too repetitive in the build (but this is, to some extent, intrinsic to the nature of building flowers), I commend the designers for creating a model that brings more than simply a return to last year’s pot designs with new flowers.

What do you think of this set? Has it won you over? Am I overthinking it? If you loved the Happy Plants, you’ll enjoy this set. Where will they go next year? Happier plants? Spinning plants? Zombified plants oozing out of the pot? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

The 11503 Rocking Plants go on sale on May the 1st, 2026. This set has 253 pieces and a RRP of $AUD 29.99 / $USD22.99 / £GBP17.99 / 19.99€. The LEGO Group sent this set over for an early review.

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Until Next Time,

Play Well!