Deduce #84: The gardens — the solution

The Deduce puzzle from November 6, 2026, worked through clue by clue: 7 clues, 3 rounds of crossing off, and no guessing anywhere.

The puzzle

Four people — Marco, Ezra, Pia and Luca — and three things to work out about each: their flower, gate and garden. The clues only ever rule things out.

1. Ezra is not the one in garden 2.
2. Pia is in a lower-numbered garden than the one by the cedar gate.
3. Ezra is the one by the copper gate.
4. Luca is the one by the birch gate.
5. The one by the cedar gate is in a lower-numbered garden than the petunias grower.
6. Ezra is the peonies grower.
7. Luca is exactly 3 gardens after the pansies grower.

The walkthrough

A round is one pass over the clues. Each round applies what the last one settled; every step below is an elimination the clues force, in the order a solver would take them.

Round 1

Start with every possibility open, and take the clues in order.

Clue 1, “Ezra is not the one in garden 2”: garden 2 comes off Ezra.

Clue 2, “Pia is in a lower-numbered garden than the one by the cedar gate”: cedar comes off Pia; garden 4 comes off Pia.

Clue 3, “Ezra is the one by the copper gate”: copper comes off Marco, Pia and Luca. That settles it: Ezra’s gate is copper.

Clue 4, “Luca is the one by the birch gate”: birch comes off Marco and Pia. That settles it: Pia’s gate is brick and Luca’s gate is birch.

Clue 5, “The one by the cedar gate is in a lower-numbered garden than the petunias grower”: petunias comes off Marco; garden 4 comes off Marco.

Clue 6, “Ezra is the peonies grower”: peonies comes off Marco, Pia and Luca. That settles it: Ezra’s flower is peonies.

Clue 7, “Luca is exactly 3 gardens after the pansies grower”: pansies comes off Luca; garden 1, garden 2 and garden 3 come off Luca. That settles it: Luca is in garden 4.

Round 2

Go back over the clues with the new facts in hand.

Brick is Pia’s, so it comes off Marco. That settles it: Marco’s gate is cedar.

garden 4 is Luca’s, so it comes off Ezra.

Clue 2, “Pia is in a lower-numbered garden than the one by the cedar gate”: garden 1 comes off Marco; garden 3 comes off Pia.

Clue 5, “The one by the cedar gate is in a lower-numbered garden than the petunias grower”: petunias comes off Pia.

Clue 7, “Luca is exactly 3 gardens after the pansies grower”: pansies comes off Marco; garden 2 comes off Pia. That settles it: Marco’s flower is daisies and Pia is in garden 1.

Round 3

Go back over the clues with the new facts in hand.

Daisies is Marco’s, so it comes off Pia and Luca. That settles it: Pia’s flower is pansies and Luca’s flower is petunias.

garden 1 is Pia’s, so it comes off Ezra. That settles it: Ezra is in garden 3.

Nobody but Marco can still have garden 2, so Marco is in garden 2.

The answer

Previous: Deduce #83 (Thu, Nov 5) · Next: Deduce #85 (Sat, Nov 7) · All Deduce solutions

About Deduce

Deduce is Noggin’s daily logic grid: four people, three things to work out about each, and clues that never hand you an answer. Every puzzle has exactly one solution and can be finished by crossing off alone. How to play Deduce, or play today’s.