Exploring new islands is a great way to come across rare flowers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons but cross pollinating your own is a cheaper way to beautify the land. It's easy to get started, too — just plant two flowers next to each other and hope that it rains! However, if you're looking to improve your green-thumb and become a real gardener, you'll want to learn a bit more about how to create hybrid plants in New Horizons.

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When you first land on your deserted island there will be one type of flower that is native. The rest will have to be found while out visiting other locations. Here are all the types of flowers available in New Horizons:

  • Lilies
  • Roses
  • Pansies
  • Hyacinths
  • Mums
  • Windflowers
  • Cosmos
  • Tulips

Once you've acquired two flowers of the same type, you're ready to start the cross pollinating process. It's a simple mechanic — place two flowers of the same type next to each other, sprinkle them with your watering can, and wait. One caveat — make sure you leave an open space between the flowers for the hybrid to take root. Most experts recommend laying out your garden in a checkerboard pattern. This is the optimal way to produce hybrids as it allows you to pack in loads of flowers in a small area, while still leaving room for the hybrids to grow. You can see an example of this below:

Screenshot | Jon Bitner

Plants that are located near each other won't always provide hybrids, but you can always dig up the new plant and try again. There's a lot of fun to be had with experimenting with all the different combinations, trying to figure out which parents create which offspring. If you'd prefer to forego the trial-and-error portion of gardening, one Twitter user has put together an incredible thread detailing several different hybrid flower combinations.

It's worth playing around with different variations, as it looks like there are plenty of hybrids left for players to discover. Just remember to water the flowers, leave an empty space for the hybrid to take root, and that cross pollinating only works among the same type of plant.

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