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The beauty of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the ability to create your own dream island. With the Terraforming tool, you can even alter the layout. Since the game launched in 2020, fans have been making all sorts of awesome things on their islands.
This is a game where your imagination can be allowed to run wild. Some players have made incredible Dream Islands that others can visit. However, sometimes you want the more simplistic things. This guide is going to teach you how to make your very own aesthetically pleasing and profitable fruit orchard.
Updated on May 9, 2023: Trees naturally grow on your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island, but you might be wondering how to organize them efficiently or even make your own orchard. We've updated this guide for readability so you can do just that.
Why Is An Orchard A Good Idea?
It costs a lot of Bells to be able to buy the things you want in the game. You'll need them to purchase clothes, furniture, and even island enhancements.
This is where having an orchard comes in. You will be able to shake the trees once they have fruit on them and sell the fruit for a very good price at the shop.
Fruit that is not native to your Island will sell for more, so having an Orchard of non-native fruit will be more profitable.
Also, for those who like an organized island, it is useful to have the fruit all in one area. Plus it just looks nice.
Step One - Collecting Your Items To Make A Fruit Orchard
You will need a Shovel to create an orchard. You'll also need to gather some of your chosen fruit.
If you want to use non-native fruit, you will need to travel to Mystery Islands, another player's island, or wait for one of your villagers to gift you a piece of fruit.
You can collect more fruit as each tree grows and make the orchard a gradual work-in-progress.
Step Two - Choosing Your Orchard Area
To create a pleasing and profitable orchard, you should try to find a spot on your island that is quite big and that you want to use for this purpose.
In this guide, the orchard has been created on a mid-level cliff that had been slightly expanded through terraforming using the Island Designer App.
If you wish to put your Orchard on a cliff and have unlocked the Terraforming option, you can use this to expand the area to make it more suitable for trees.
You may also need to move cliffs and/or water around to create the shape you want, all of which require the Island Designer tool.
If you have not unlocked it yet, don't worry — you can create an orchard without it.
If you choose to do some Terraforming, open your Nook phone and choose the Island Designer App.
You can purchase the Cliff Building and Waterscaping tools for the Island Designer app from the Nook Terminal. You will need to use your Nook Points.
If you are building on a cliff, then your orchard will be better off on one that is quite large. Also, the app will allow you to move bodies of water if they are in your way.
Step Three - Preparing The Area And Planting Your Fruit Trees
Next, you need to equip your Shovel. If you do not have one, you can craft one, or buy one from Timmy and Tommy at the shop.
Then, you can go to the area that you have chosen for your orchard. You should clear the area of any objects that will get in the way.
Don't worry! You can add these back in later if you want to.
Use your Shovel to dig holes to plan out where you are going to plant your fruits.
You must remember that trees planted too close together will not grow, so leave a decent amount of space between them.
Each tree needs at least one tile of space between itself and the next one over.
We recommend having the holes two tiles apart.
If you are not happy with the layout of your Orchard, you can always try again somewhere else before planting the trees.
Once you are happy with your layout, you should stand next to one of your holes. Then you can go into your pockets and highlight a piece or pile of fruit.
Click on it and choose the "Plant 1" option. Your character should plant the fruit within the hole you are standing next to.
Depending on the size of your Orchard, it can take a while to plant everything.
Step Four - The Long Wait
It will take your fruit trees a few days to mature if you have planted them correctly.
If they are not growing, you have probably planted them too close together.
Day One: On the day you plant them, they will look like this:
Day Two: They should be slightly smaller than you.
Day Three: The trees will be slightly bigger with two bushy bits on them.
Day Four The trees will look like proper trees now! There will be no fruit, though.
Day Five: You will have fully grown fruit trees with fruit on them already!
At this point, you can shake the trees and the fruit will fall off. It will then grow back again over the course of multiple days, with one fruit growing at a time. Fruit takes three days to grow on your island.
Step Five - Enhancing Your Orchard
Many fans of the game agree that it is beautiful to look at, so why not make your orchard beautiful too? For this guide, you will learn to make a flower border.
You will need a Shovel and you will need some flowers, either seeds or some that have already grown.
You can buy flower seeds from Leif, Timmy and Tommy, or you can take fully grown ones from other parts of your island, mystery island tours, or ask friends/other players for them.
The easiest way to make sure your flower border looks how you want it to is to use your shovel to dig holes to mark out where you want the flowers to go.
If you want to, you can plant your flowers in a certain order that will lead to them breeding different types of flowers.
Once you are happy with your hole placement, stand next to one of the holes and open your pockets. Click on your desired plant and choose the Plant option.
If you keep doing this you will eventually have a pretty awesome flower border around your orchard.
Many players use custom designs on signs to mark where certain fruits are planted, so you can easily tell when there isn't fruit on the tree!
Fence Customization
You can also place fences around your orchard or use them to divide trees that grow different fruit.
Fences don't require any extra work, they won't break over time so once they're set, and they're there until you remove them. Flowers can be a bit of a hassle since they will sometimes breed and cause a new flower to appear out of place.
You can also customize fences to fit your design. To customize a fence all you have to do is:
- Head down to Resident Services and access the Nook Stop.
- Select the "Redeem Nook Miles" option.
- Purchase "Custom fencing in a flash" for 2,500 Nook Miles.
Then, after you've unlocked the ability, all you need is a few Customization Kits and you're good to go. Access a DIY workbench and customize as you please!