Maru is one of the marriage candidates in Stardew Valley, living at 24 Mountain Road in a house attached to her mother Robin’s carpenter shop, just north of Pelican Town. She splits her week between tinkering in her lab, working as a nurse at Harvey’s clinic, and sitting on benches in town, which makes her easy to track down once you know her routine. Her birthday is Summer 10.
Quick answer: Reach 8 hearts with Maru by giving loved gifts (Cauliflower is the simplest), buy a Bouquet from Pierre for 200g to make her your girlfriend, then reach 10 hearts and give her a Mermaid’s Pendant after upgrading your house at least once. The wedding happens three days later.
Where to find Maru by day and season
Maru works at Harvey’s clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so those are the days she is in one fixed place for most of the afternoon. On other days she usually starts in her bedroom, moves to her lab, then heads into town. Rainy days keep her at home in her room, the main room of the house, or the lab.
| Day | Where she goes |
|---|---|
| Tuesday & Thursday | Harvey’s clinic from morning until about 4:45 PM, then home |
| Monday & Sunday | Bedroom, then lab, then the bench south of the Stardrop Saloon |
| Wednesday, Friday, Saturday | Bedroom, lab, then the bench east of the Community Center (or the lake in summer and fall) |
| Rainy days | Stays home in her room, the main room, or the lab |
Two seasonal extras are worth remembering. In summer and fall she stargazes by the lake east of her house with her telescope on some evenings, and every Winter 16 she attends the Night Market.
Best gifts for Maru: loves, likes, dislikes, and hates
Gifts are the fastest way to raise friendship. You can give Maru two gifts per week plus one on her birthday, and the birthday gift counts for eight times the normal effect. Maru’s tastes lean toward science, so she loves bars, gems, and batteries and dislikes most things you forage off the ground.
| Reaction | Items |
|---|---|
| Loves | Battery Pack, Cauliflower, Cheese Cauliflower, Diamond, Gold Bar, Iridium Bar, Miner’s Treat, Pepper Poppers, Radioactive Bar, Rhubarb Pie, Strawberry, plus all universal loves |
| Likes | Copper Bar, Iron Bar, Oak Resin, Pine Tar, Quartz, Radioactive Ore, plus most universal likes |
| Dislikes | Blackberry, Common Mushroom, Crystal Fruit, Maple Syrup, Salmonberry |
| Hates | Holly, Honey, Pickles, Snow Yam, Truffle |
Two gifts are reliable all game long. Cauliflower is a loved crop you can grow on the farm, and Copper Bars are a liked item you can smelt from copper ore in a furnace. Stockpiling either one lets you hit her two-gift weekly limit without hunting for rare materials.
Maru’s heart events and how to trigger them
Heart events are cutscenes that unlock at set friendship levels. Each has its own location and conditions, and several include dialogue choices that nudge your friendship up or down. Pick the supportive response in each case to keep building hearts.
| Hearts | Where it triggers | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Carpenter’s Shop, while Maru is there | Demetrius talks about being proud of her; staying quiet earns points with Demetrius |
| 4 | The clinic | Maru drops a glass beaker; your reply can help or hurt the relationship |
| 6 | Mountains, sunny night | Maru shows you something through her telescope |
| 8 | Carpenter’s Shop | She demonstrates a project and you get shocked by her machine |
| 10 | Carpenter’s Shop | She reveals her robot, MarILDA |
| 14 | Farmhouse, then the mountains | She invites you to stargaze and wish on a comet |
There is also a group 10-heart event that fires once you reach 10 hearts with every bachelorette. If you are carrying a Rabbit’s Foot, it plays out as gossip about Mayor Lewis and Marnie. Without one, the bachelorettes confront you for dating all of them.
Marriage steps for Maru
What changes after you marry Maru
After the wedding, Maru moves into the farmhouse. A new room is added to the right of the bedroom, themed around her science and invention work, along with a small outdoor area for her gadgets. She keeps her own life going, working at the clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays and visiting Robin at the Carpenter’s Shop on Mondays.
As a spouse, she will water crops, feed animals, repair fences, and occasionally hand you gifts. On rainy mornings, she may give a Warp Totem: Farm, Quality Fertilizer, Refined Quartz, a Gate, or a Bomb. On rainy nights, she might offer Rice Pudding, Blueberry Tart, Cookies, or Chocolate Cake. When she stays in all day, expect items like a Cherry Bomb, a Bomb, Fried Mushroom, or Crab Cakes that she says came from her scrap pile.
You can have two children with Maru. The first child’s gender is random, and the second is always the opposite gender of the first. Married players can also trigger the two-part 14-heart event. Part one plays when you enter the Farmhouse between 6:10 AM and 5 PM on a non-Sunday, non-Winter day, and part two happens when you visit the mountains between 10 PM and 1 AM on a sunny day to watch a comet together.
Keep feeding her loved gifts after marriage, and the relationship continues to climb, unlocking the later heart event and steady spouse gifts. Cauliflower and Copper Bars remain the cheapest way to top up hearts, while a Diamond or Gold Bar is a strong choice if you want a bigger jump or a guaranteed win on her Summer 10 birthday.
