I have had an improvement running in my Prote plantation. Even as the clock ticked down no change was evident in either lit stars or description... it stayed a flat area in the wilderness. Today the clock hit zero and... nada. Worse still now there is no choice to switch to another area to improve... just the link to add gold bars to an area.
So... I'm gonna do that after 40 days of 'improvements' has produced zilch.... yeah...