Animal Crossing flower guide: How to breed hybrid flowers in New Horizons

Growing a variety of flowers, including unique hybrid blooms, is a highlight in Animal Crossing New Horizons, and this guide shows how to cultivate these rare hybrids in the game.

Since its return and Nintendo Switch debut in 2020, Animal Crossing New Horizons has continued the cozy franchise tradition, with flowers playing a significant role in the game’s life simulation aspects.

While flowers can certainly make your island look more appealing, you can breed them in the game to get rare hybrid creations that will stand out due to their unique colorings. Hybrid flowers can’t be purchased in a shop or simply found, so if you want to fill your island paradise with them, you’ll need to know how to breed standard flowers.

Here’s a full guide to breeding flowers in Animal Crossing New Horizons.

Contents

• Breeding flowers in Animal Crossing New Horizons
• How long does it take for flowers to breed in Animal Crossing
• How to get hybrid flowers
• Hybrid flowers list
• How to get gold roses

Nintendo

Flowers can brighten up your New Horizons island.

Breeding flowers in Animal Crossing New Horizons

Flowers are a simple yet essential element of any Animal Crossing game experience. Planting them can make your island look more attractive, and can also help you increase your island’s star level.

When you get a ladder in New Horizons, you’ll be able to climb the cliffs on your island and discover that you have a specific type of wildflower growing on it. This can be any of the following eight breeds:

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

You can get other breeds of flowers by picking them from your friends’ islands and replanting them on your own island, or by purchasing seeds from Timmy in Residential Services and later from Nook’s Cranny.

Growing new flowers is as simple as planting seeds and making sure you water them every day until they’re fully grown. You can use a watering can for this, but if it’s recently rained, you won’t even need to do that.

How long does it take for flowers to breed in Animal Crossing

Flowers grow in four stages over four days, going from sprout, to stem, to budding, to flowering. It is important to remember that a flower will only attempt to breed while in the budding or flowering stage which means that it can take 5-10 days for a flower to breed.

However, it is important to remember that an actual number is not available meaning that the days you have to wait for your flower to breed may vary especially depending on the kind of flowers you want to breed.

How to get hybrid flowers in Animal Crossing New Horizons

Nintendo

Hybrid flowers are sure to make your island stand out.

If you want to decorate your island with some more exciting flowers than those available as standard, you can utilize the flower breeding method in Animal Crossing to get your hands on some unique hybrid flowers.

• The easiest way to do this is to plant your parent flowers diagonally in a checkerboard pattern. Doing it this way, as opposed to planting them all in a row, provides optimal space for new hybrid flowers to grow.
• Make sure your flowers are watered every day, either with a watering can or by the rain, and hybrid flowers will eventually grow in the empty spaces.
• Once grown, you can dig them up and replant them elsewhere.

Here’s how to grow hybrid flowers in Animal Crossing:

1. Get seeds of your two chosen parent flowers, making sure they’re the same breed.
2. Plant them near each other in a diagonal checkerboard pattern.
3. Water them every day. You can skip this step if it’s raining.
4. Once the parents are fully grown, hybrid flowers should begin to grow!

We’d also recommend placing fencing around your flower patches, as that will stop you (or friends) from accidentally running through them and ruining your hard work. Fences also make your island look nicer!

Animal Crossing New Horizons flower breeding chart

There are multiple ways to breed hybrid flower colors in Animal Crossing New Horizons, but we’ve listed the methods that are most likely to give you the result you’re looking for:

Cosmos

Hyacinths

Lilies

Mums

Pansies

Roses

Tulips

Windflowers

How to get gold roses through flower breeding in Animal Crossing New Horizons

Nintendo (via Twitter: @triforcemeg)

Gold Roses are hard to get but totally worth it.

As well as the hybrid flowers listed above, it’s also possible to get golden roses in New Horizons. These elusive flowers are very difficult to get, but they’re the perfect way to show off your top gardening skills.

• You’ll first need to get a golden watering can DIY recipe, which will be given to you when your town gets a five-star evaluation from Isabelle.
• Once you’ve crafted that tool, you’ll need to grow black roses by breeding red roses together.
• After you’ve got a black rose, simply water it with your gold watering can, and you might have a gold rose to show off the next day!

For more details on how to do this, we’ve got a more in-depth guide for growing gold roses right here.

That’s everything you need to know about flower breeding in Animal Crossing New Horizons. For more tips and tricks to help you on your island, check out our list of guides below:

How to get Gayle in Animal Crossing | ACNH art guide | How to get Ruby in Animal Crossing New Horizons | How to get a villager to move out | Funny catchphrases in New Horizons | How to time travel | How to restart your New Horizons island | Stop villagers moving out | Villager gift guide | How to get Gold Roses in New Horizons