In Fauna Crossing: New Horizons, gardening is one of the most rewarding things you can practice, both from a material perspective and an intangible 1. You can buy regular blossom seeds and plant them effectually your island to brand information technology pretty, but this isn't that special. If you actually want to accept your gardening to the side by side level, y'all're going to need to learn how to breed flowers to get make-new colors. These hybrid flowers include black, blueish, purple, pink, and orangish variations of the flowers you tin plant normally--plus the extra-special, elusive gold roses.

Hybrid flowers aren't merely pretty--they can sometimes attract rare bugs you lot couldn't get otherwise and can too be used as crafting ingredients, so it'due south a adept idea to have at to the lowest degree a few on your island. The technical details for this guide, including flower genes and the specifics of availability, come up from the ACNH Flower Research datamine.

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Now Playing: 13 Essential Tips For Animal Crossing New Horizons

Table of Contents [hide]

  • Types Of Flowers
    • Native Flowers And Sis Flowers
  • How To Breed Flowers
    • Cloning
    • Visitor Watering Bonus
    • How To Go The Golden Watering Can
  • Bloom Genes
  • Mystery Island Hybrids
  • Hybrid Flower Breeding Combinations
    • Cosmos
    • Hyacinths
    • Lilies
    • Mums
    • Pansies
    • Roses
    • Tulips
    • Windflowers
  • What To Do With Flowers

Types Of Flowers

Like with your native island fruit, there volition be one type of flower that grows on your cliffs when you starting time the game; keep in listen that you'll demand a ladder to scale the cliffs. You tin can buy other varieties of flowers (in seed grade) at Nook's Cranny or from Leif when he visits. The flower varieties tin can be found in the image beneath.

A chart showing all the flower species in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and every color available for each. Click in to enlarge.
A chart showing all the flower species in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and every color available for each. Click in to overstate.

Each of these flowers comes in standard red, white, and yellow varieties at get-go aside from windflowers, which come in crimson, white, and orangish initially. (At that place are no xanthous windflowers, and orange windflowers are not hybrids.) These are the just colors y'all'll find when ownership seed bags; all other colors aren't sold at Nook's Cranny and are considered rare.

Native Flowers And Sister Flowers

The blossom stock at Nook'southward Cranny will rotate each day, with iii types of flowers available at any given time. Every bit mentioned above, your isle will have one type of native blossom; this flower is ever in stock at Nook's Cranny. You'll also have a sister bloom, which will also always be in stock. The third blossom in stock on any given day is determined past which month it is and tin modify each day inside that month. For instance, in the Northern Hemisphere, roses, tulips, and windflowers are all in season in May. If none of these are your native or sister blossom, they'll take turns being in stock at Nook's Cranny each day in May.

According to datamined information, native flowers are determined at random based on which flowers are in season during your starting character'southward nativity month, while your sis flower is one of the flowers that were in season during the month you started your island. If you aren't sure what your sister flower is, visit a few Mystery Bout islands; y'all can only see your native flower or your sister flower on these islands.

With simply three of the eight types of flower seeds available for sale on any given mean solar day, you're going to accept some problem getting sure types of flowers from the store right away. Luckily, you can either buy these flower seeds from friends' islands (provided they accept different native and/or sister flowers than you lot) or from the special visitor Leif, who stocks seeds you tin can't normally buy. You tin also dig up flowers on friends' islands (with permission!) if you've registered each other equally Best Friends; you can read more than almost how to add Best Friends in our guide.

How To Breed Flowers

The main way to grow new flowers is by crossbreeding (or just "convenance") two others. Flowers can breed only if they're the same species of flower, but in that location are a few other requirements you lot need to come across, too. Those are:

  • The flowers are planted adjacent to each other (either straight or diagonally)
  • They're fully bloomed or budding (meaning they will exist fully bloomed the next mean solar day)
  • They've been watered (either by any type of watering tin can or by rain)
  • At that place is an empty space adjacent to them

If these conditions are met, a new flower has a hazard of sprouting on nearby empty spaces the next day. Dissimilar in Brute Crossing: New Leaf, there is no limit to the number of new flowers that can spawn each day. Annotation that flowers tin can spawn on dirt and dark dirt paths but not on whatsoever other type of path you lot can lay down using Island Designer, so be mindful of this when landscaping.

"Breeding" refers to this process of producing new flowers, and information technology doesn't necessarily mean y'all'll get a hybrid flower. Sometimes two white flowers adjacent to each other volition produce another white flower, for example. This is a practiced style to produce more flowers without having to buy seeds, and information technology's also an integral stride in obtaining certain ultra-rare hybrids.

Cloning

There's also a hazard that a bloom past itself volition spawn a new flower of the same color when watered. This is referred to as "cloning," because the new bloom will have exactly the same "genes" equally the original bloom--see the section on genes below. Cloning is useful if you want to multiply your hybrids quickly and easily, or if you want to use a certain breed of blossom for farther breeding. Note that you can't clone golden roses.

The easiest mode to clone flowers is to exit them with nine empty spaces around them (i.e., non touching whatsoever other flowers) or only touching flowers of a different species. Flowers tin can clone themselves if they're touching other flowers of the same species provided they aren't crossbreeding with anything else around them, but it's difficult-to-impossible to track whether the flowers crossbred or just cloned, then this isn't recommended if you're trying to clone something specific.

Visitor Watering Bonus

Try asking your friends to come to your island and h2o the flowers yous're breeding! There'southward a special benefit to this: If flowers have been watered past a visitor, the chance they'll produce offspring, either past breeding or cloning, goes up. This issue stacks upwards to five visitors (with the consequence steadily increasing) and can drastically increase the production of new flowers, so if you have willing friends, asking them to water your flowers can speed up convenance significantly.

How To Get The Gilded Watering Can

Speaking of aureate roses, you're going to need a special tool for those: the golden watering can. Information technology works the same way every bit other watering cans--though information technology tin water more flowers at once--except when you're watering black roses (details below). To get the gold watering can DIY recipe, yous need to get a five-star town evaluation from Isabelle. In club to reach five stars, you'll demand to have enough of fencing, flowers, and furniture decorating your isle, and Isabelle will give y'all hints as to what you're missing when doing her evaluations. When you do attain five stars, Isabelle volition give you lot the recipe for the golden watering can, which you lot tin then craft at any time so long as yous have the materials.

Flower Genes

Extensive datamining has confirmed that flowers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons take "genes" that determine both their color and what color offspring they're able to breed. Each blazon of blossom utilizes 3 genes except for roses, which employ iv (hence why they're and so complicated to breed). You lot can look at Paleh's Advanced Bloom Genetics Guide, which uses datamined information, for the technical specifics of genes; for this guide, notwithstanding, we're sticking to the applied applications for accessible flower breeding.

Basically, flowers in New Horizons utilise Mendelian genetics, the kind you larn in basic biology. That means flowers have recessive and dominant genes--think Punnett squares--and these genes determine what color the flower is. In some cases, two or more dissimilar combinations of genes can result in the aforementioned color flower, which is where chain breeding--the procedure by which you breed flowers, then accept the flowers yous've bred and and so breed them to get another color--tin get really catchy. Luckily, every bloom that comes from a seed bag (whether you bought it from Nook's Cranny or Leif) has the exact same genes, which standardizes things.

For example, you lot can brood basic ruby pansies (the kind you lot establish from a seed bag) with blue pansies to get... more than cherry-red pansies. However, the red pansies y'all get from this red-bluish combo have dissimilar genes than the red pansies y'all can go from seed bags, even though they expect the same--they're oftentimes called "hybrid red," while the normal ones are chosen "seed ruby-red." Because of the genetic difference, you tin breed ii hybrid-red pansies together to go majestic, but you can't get purple pansies from seed-red pansies at all. In social club to breed purple pansies, you have to keep track of which reds are from seed bags and which are from breeding with blue pansies.

For some flowers--namely lilies, cosmos, tulips, and hyacinths--you won't have to worry virtually genes too much, because their genotypes are relatively unproblematic and require but minimal, easy-to-track chain breeding. For the others, especially roses, you'll have to pay shut attention to the flowers you constitute and breed if you want to get the rarest colors. This is as well where cloning comes into play, since it's useful to clone the nearly hard-to-go genetic combinations in one case you're sure you accept i.

Mystery Island Hybrids

Before the one.ii.0 update, you could detect hybrid flowers while on a deserted island Mystery Bout. However, that update removed these islands from the Mystery Tour lineup, and they haven't been in the game since. If you were lucky enough to take abode some hybrid flowers from one of these islands--or if you lot haven't downloaded the 1.ii.0 update for the game yet--you'll be able to save a lot of time breeding flowers, then nosotros'll include the specifics of these Mystery Island hybrids in this guide for reference.

Hybrids you could observe on these Mystery Tours accept dissimilar genes than the ones y'all can breed from seed flowers on your own isle. In some cases, these hybrids tin can brand concatenation breeding for ultra-rare colors far easier, so if you somehow get your hands on one, make certain you go on track of which flower it is!

A hybrid flower island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (RIP).
A hybrid blossom isle in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (RIP).

Hybrid Bloom Breeding Combinations

Below are all the primal breeding combinations (via Paleh'south Advanced Flower Genetics Guide and our ain testing) for every species and color of blossom in New Horizons. This list assumes you're starting with flowers from seeds, then we've only listed the optimal combinations for each hybrid color. Because of how flower genes piece of work, y'all may find that other combinations nosotros haven't listed may produce hybrids--this usually occurs when you have "hybrid" versions of the standard colors, similar the hybrid-red pansies in the example to a higher place.

Most of the combinations listed but have a chance to produce the hybrid color and might requite yous a different color some of the fourth dimension, only nosotros've specified the percentage in the more than complicated cases where chain breeding is a concern. (This percent represents the chance y'all'll go the desired colour/gene combination when the flowers brood.) If you lot're trying to get more of a particular color of a flower, we recommend cloning it rather than trying to breed it with itself.

Annotation that "seed" colors refer to the flowers yous establish from seed bags you've purchased at Nook's Cranny or from Leif; "island" colors refer to the hybrids you could merely get from Mystery Tour islands; and "hybrid" or "special" colors refer to specific genetic combinations of flowers where noted. If it'due south not specified, assume every reddish, white, and yellowish blossom in this list is a seed flower (and that any simple hybrid colors listed came from those seed combinations). Information technology's important to start with seed flowers when breeding for consistency.

Note that information technology's no longer possible to get island hybrids in-game as of the one.2.0 update, just we've left them in this guide in instance you still have access to a bloom from 1 of these islands or if you haven't downloaded this update.

Cosmos

Cosmos are unproblematic and piece of cake to breed, with just i chain: orange to black.

A chart showing how to breed every color of cosmos in New Horizons.
A chart showing how to breed every color of cosmos in New Horizons.

Basic combos:

  • reddish + white = pink
  • ruddy + yellow = orangish
  • orange + orange = blackness (rare)

Best combo for black cosmos:

  • island orange + isle orangish = blackness (around nineteen%)

Hyacinths

Yous can get every color of hyacinths without any complex genetic bondage, but purple is incredibly rare this way. The chance of getting purple goes up significantly (to 25%) if you breed blues from oranges and and so utilise those blues to breed; these blues are identical to those y'all can observe on Mystery Tour islands, which also work.

A chart showing how to breed every color of hyacinths in New Horizons.
A chart showing how to breed every color of hyacinths in New Horizons.

Basic combos:

  • cherry + white = pink
  • red + yellow = orangish
  • white + white = bluish
  • orangish + orange = royal

Best methods for purple hyacinths:

  • orangish + orangish = special blue (12.five%)
    • special blue + special blue = purple
  • island blueish + isle blue = purple
  • island blueish + island orange = royal
  • isle orange + island orange = purple

Lilies

Lilies are the simplest flower to brood, and you can go every color without chain breeding at all. None of the colors are all that rare, either!

A chart showing how to breed every color of lilies in New Horizons.
A nautical chart showing how to breed every colour of lilies in New Horizons.

Basic combos:

  • carmine + white = pink
  • crimson + yellow = orange
  • red + red = blackness or pink

Mums

Mums are the but flower species that can be light-green, and there are a few ways to become light-green mums. Because hybrid yellowish + hybrid xanthous can produce seed yellowish, brand sure you only get your hybrid yellows from seed ruby + seed yellowish or by cloning a hybrid yellowish.

A chart showing how to breed every color of mums in New Horizons.
A chart showing how to breed every color of mums in New Horizons.

Basic combos:

  • red + white = pink
  • white + white = purple
  • seed blood-red + seed xanthous = hybrid yellow (100%)
  • hybrid xanthous + hybrid yellow = green (rare)

Best method for green mums:

  • hybrid yellow + hybrid xanthous = special purple (25%)
    • special purple + special imperial = green (25%)

Other combos for greenish mums:

  • island regal + island pink = green (effectually 19%)
  • island imperial + island purple = green (rare)

Pansies

Like hyacinths, the most difficult pansy is the purple ane, and it's very rare; however, the concatenation is relatively simple. Your chances go up to 25% if you use hybrid pansies from a Mystery Tour isle.

A chart showing how to breed every color of pansies in New Horizons.
A chart showing how to brood every color of pansies in New Horizons.

Basic combos:

  • red + yellow = orange
  • white + white = blue
  • ruddy + blue = hybrid ruby (100%)
  • hybrid carmine + hybrid red = purple (rare)

Best combos for purple pansies:

  • island bluish + island blue = purple
  • island orange + isle orangish = purple
  • island bluish + isle orange = imperial

Roses

Roses are the most circuitous flower in New Horizons, and bluish roses are the rarest flower in the game. In that location are a few chain-breeding methods to become blue roses, and they are a chip complicated, then bear with it. Keep in mind that you should always be using the standard colors (either the seed colors or the hybrids y'all become from those seed colors) to ensure the genes are correct unless otherwise noted. Once again, this data is from Paleh'south Advanced Bloom Genetics Guide, simplified for those who don't want to deal with the technical specifics.

Basic combos:

  • red + white = pinkish
  • crimson + yellow = orange
  • red + blood-red = blackness or pinkish
  • white + white = royal
  • blackness + seed yellowish = orange (100%; same genes as seed red + seed yellow)
  • black (watered with gold watering can) = gilded

Bluish rose method 1 (Mystery Island):

  • island orange + isle orangish = blue (rare) OR island hybrid red
  • island hybrid red + isle hybrid red = blue (25%)

If you're lucky plenty to take roses as your native or sis flower (or have a friend who does), y'all can totally circumvent all of the complicated stuff below and just utilize isle hybrid roses for a quick path to blue roses.

Blue rose method 2 (simplest):

  • orange + purple = hybrid red (25%, and some other 25% volition be the wrong kind of red)
  • hybrid red + hybrid reddish = blue (1.6%)

This method is bad, mainly because there's no skillful way to cheque if your red roses are the correct kind of ruby. You just have to get really lucky, and while possible, it's not very efficient. (Note that this hybrid reddish has different genes than the isle hybrid crimson to a higher place, and it's besides different from the hybrid red 2 below. Don't become them mixed upward!)

Blue rose method 3 (recommended):

  • seed white + seed white = purple
  • seed red + seed reddish = black
  • blackness + purple = special reddish
  • special red + special ruddy = hybrid carmine
  • hybrid red + hybrid red = blue (1.6%)

This is the recommended method if you don't want to do an extremely long chain; it's guaranteed to become you the hybrid reds you need to make blue, equally opposed to method two above, which only gives y'all a 25% chance of getting them and no existent mode to tell if you did. If yous don't have access to isle orange roses, y'all could practise worse than this method.

Blue rose method 4 (highest chance):

This method is the longest of all of them, but by the terminate of information technology, you lot'll take a 25% gamble of getting bluish roses from two hybrid crimson ones (these are different from the to a higher place hybrid reds and are labeled "hybrid red two" below for clarity). Because this is so complex, information technology'due south recommended that you only breed each of these every bit pairs, rather than setting upwardly grids or any other convenance pattern of iii or more than flowers.

  • seed white + seed yellow = special white 1
  • seed white + seed white = purple
  • special white one + purple = special majestic (fifty%)

At this pace, only half the purple offspring will exist the correct kind. Yous can either endeavour your luck or test to see if these purples are indeed the purples you need to continue this method.

  • Good: regal + seed yellow = white or hybrid yellow (information technology'southward l/l)
  • Bad: majestic + seed yellow = white simply

Give this combination a few tries to see if you get yellowish; if you only get white roses, that imperial isn't the right kind of royal, then you lot should get rid of information technology earlier standing. You should likewise go on whatever yellow roses from this stride, as they can be used later on on in the concatenation.

  • clone the special purple rose to go another one with the correct genes!
  • special purple + special majestic OR hybrid yellow + hybrid yellow = hybrid white
  • seed ruddy + seed xanthous = orangish
  • orange + hybrid white = special orange

You lot can stop here, clone the special orange rose, and brood the two together for a 6.25% run a risk of a blue rose. Continue the chain for a 25% combination instead.

  • hybrid white + special orange = hybrid red 2
  • clone or brood another hybrid red 2
  • hybrid red two + hybrid red two = blueish (25%)!

While this path is much longer than the others, its success rate is besides much better. You tin can speed upward the procedure past breeding the orange, special white 1, and purple roses at the same time. Good luck!

Tulips

Back to simple flowers. Like with hyacinths, y'all can become every colour of tulip relatively easily, only royal ones are the rarest. You can increase your chances of getting a purple tulip to 25% by breeding hybrids from a Mystery Tour isle.

A chart showing how to breed every color of tulips in New Horizons.
A chart showing how to breed every color of tulips in New Horizons.

Basic combos:

  • red + white = pink
  • scarlet + yellow = orangish
  • red + blood-red = black
  • orange + orange = royal (rare)

All-time combos for royal tulips:

  • isle black + isle black = regal
  • island orange + island orange = majestic
  • island blackness + island orange = purple

Windflowers

Windflowers are slightly weird in that they don't have a yellow version; instead, orangish is a default rather than a hybrid. While not nearly as circuitous as roses, getting the rare purple windflower does require a bit of endeavour. Your chances go upwardly to 25% if you use island hybrids or special dejection.

Basic combos:

  • reddish + orange = pink
  • white + white = blue
  • carmine + bluish = hybrid cherry-red (100%)
  • pink + blue = hybrid red (25%)
  • pink + blueish = special pink (25%)

Best combos for purple windflowers:

  • hybrid red + hybrid ruddy = special blue (half of the blue offspring)
    • To test the blues, breed them together. Special blues produce pinks half the time, while normal ones will only produce oranges.
    • special blue + special blue = majestic
  • isle pink + island pink = purple
  • island blue + island blue = purple
  • island blue + island pink = purple

Other combos for purple windflowers:

  • hybrid red + hybrid red = purple (rare)
  • special pink + special pink = imperial (rare)
  • special pink + hybrid red = purple (rare)

What To Do With Flowers

Flowers take a variety of uses in New Horizons. Aside from planting and watering them, you can pick them using Y--and unlike in previous Animate being Crossing games, y'all can pick flowers without losing the whole plant, and the flowers will grow back in 2 days. This allows y'all to employ flowers in crafting recipes including diverse wreaths and article of furniture items, and you tin also place picked flowers in your habitation or around your isle to use as decoration. You can even habiliment flowers in your hair!

Flowers are particularly important to the ecosystem of your island. They meliorate your island rating (which Isabelle can tell you about), they tin attract different species of bugs, and they're just pretty in general. You'll demand at to the lowest degree a few flowers planted around your island in club to have plenty of bugs to catch--butterflies, stinkbugs, mantises, ladybugs, and honeybees will just announced on or almost flowers. There are as well 2 bugs that will just announced if you lot have sure flower colors:

Bug Name Location Months Time Toll
Orchid mantis On white flowers March - November (North);
Sept - May (S)
8 AM -
5 PM
2400
Peacock butterfly Flying near
black, blue,
or royal flowers
March - June (N);
Sept - Dec (S)
4 AM -
seven PM
2500

You can besides sell flowers (either the plant itself or picked flowers). While almost don't sell for much, you tin make a chip of change selling any you lot don't need or want. Gold and blue roses sell for 1,000 bells each, though, so you tin make a farm out of those roses and harvest them the way y'all would a fruit tree.

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