Looking for all there is to know about planting and growing flowers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons? Look no further than this guide, which will set everything out for you, including how to breed special-colored hybrid flowers!
Getting Started
First, there are a few basics if you're just getting started with this feature of the game. There are eight different species of flower that can grow naturally on your island and come in different colors. There are also seeds that you can buy and plant yourself that will sprout into said flowers. They are as follows:
- Cosmos
- Hyacinths
- Lillies
- Mums
- Pansies
- Roses
- Tulips
- Windflowers
Your island will start off with one of these as a native flower that pops up naturally in harder-to-reach places like cliffs. To get at them, you'll need to get your hands on a ladder which you can craft from a recipe obtained from Tom Nook. If you want to transplant them elsewhere on your island, make sure you also bring along your trusty shovel!
Growing Flowers
If you'd like to grow other flower types besides the one native to your island, you can always purchase seeds from Timmy at the Resident Services Tent or Nook's Cranny. There will always be three flower types available to buy, but those three types will vary from island to island. The colors available to choose from are generally red, white, and yellow.
To plant those seeds, all you need is your shovel. No need to water them once they're planted; they'll start growing regardless within a few days. But you should know that once one flower grows, if you water it regularly (using a Watering Can) more offspring flowers will spring up on any side of the first one within a 3x3 grid.
These offspring flowers will be the same color as the original flower. But perhaps you're a bit bored of all your red roses and want something a little more exciting - like a black rose? Luckily for you, there are ways you can engineer your flowers to create hybrids in unique colors that your island wouldn't otherwise produce naturally.
Breeding Hybrid Flowers
To create flowers in more exciting colors than the narrow basic selection allows, you'll have to encourage some cross-pollination. Hold on tight though, there are more than 30 different hybrid flowers that you can produce, and some recipes demand a bit of perseverance!
In essence, hybrid flower breeding entails planting different colors of the same type of flower in close proximity to one another and then watering them. The different "parent" flowers that spring up first will cross-pollinate with other parent flowers within a surrounding 5x5 grid and produce offspring flowers of the same species but in different colors.
The colors that can be obtained via hybrid breeding are pink, orange, blue, purple, green, black, and gold. The following are the different parent color combinations needed to produce these special colors for each flower type:
Cosmos
- Pink: 1 Red and 1 White parent
- Orange: 1 Red and 1 Yellow parent
- Black: 2 Red parents or 2 Orange parents
Lilies
- Pink: 1 Red and 1 White parent
- Orange: 1 Red and 1 Yellow parent
- Black: 2 Red parents
Pansies
- Blue: 2 White parents
- Orange: 1 Red and 1 Yellow parent
- Hybrid Red: 1 Blue and 1 Regular Red parent (note that the Hybrid Red and Regular Red pansies look identical, but the former are necessary for creating Hybrid Purple pansies)
- Hybrid Purple: 2 Hybrid Red parents
Roses
- Black: 2 Red parents
- Orange: 1 Yellow and 1 Red parent
- Purple: 2 White parents
- Regular Pink: 1 Red and 1 White parent
- Hybrid Pink: 1 Purple and 1 Red parent (note that the Hybrid Pink and Regular Pink look identical, but the former is necessary for creating Hybrid Blue roses)
- Hybrid Red: 1 Hybrid Pink and 1 Yellow parent (again, the Hybrid Red and Regular Red look identical, but the latter is necessary for creating Hybrid Blue roses)
- Blue: 2 Hybrid Red parents
- Gold: Black Roses watered with a Golden Watering Can (which is unlocked with a five-star town rating). No need to place two Black Roses together, you'll only need a single Black Rose flower.
Mums
- Pink: 1 Red and 1 White parent
- Regular Purple: 2 White parents
- Hybrid Yellow: 1 Red and 1 Regular Yellow parent (Hybrid Yellows are needed to create Hybrid Purple mums)
- Hybrid Purple: 2 Hybrid Yellow parents
- Green: 2 Hybrid Purple parents
Windflowers
- Pink: 1 Red and 1 Orange parent
- Blue: 2 White parents
- Hybrid Red: 1 Pink and 1 Blue parent (Hybrid Reds are needed to create Purple windflowers)
- Purple: 2 Hybrid Red parents
Hyacinths
- Pink: 1 Red and 1 White parent
- Orange: 1 Red and 1 Yellow parent
- Purple: 2 Orange parents
- Blue: 2 White parents
Tulips
- Black: 2 Red parents
- Orange: 1 Red and 1 Yellow parent
- Pink: 1 Red and 1 White parent
- Purple: 2 Orange parents
Source: YouTube