One of the most surprisingly intricate features of Animal Crossing is the hybrid flower mechanic. There’s a lot more to breeding flowers than planting them and watching them grow! Some flowers, like the elusive blue rose, have a complex genetic code which means they can take weeks to produce. Here are the top five ways to maximize your chances of success.
5. Set the Island Ordinance
The only way for flowers to breed in Animal Crossing is to water them. With the Beautiful Island ordinance, villagers will help out with the island chores, such as watering your flowers. This ordinance can also help you along your way to reaching a five-star island rating, which will grant you the golden watering can. More about that later!
How to set the ordinance:
- Upgrade Resident Services if you haven’t already, using this guide here.
- Speak to Isabelle and choose “Review island features”.
- Select “Discuss ordinances”.
- Pay Isabelle 20,000 bells and choose the “Beautiful Island” ordinance.
4. Cloning
If you just want to reproduce multiples of the same flower, cloning is for you. Cloning is a new feature for Animal Crossing, and is pretty easy to achieve. All you need to do to clone a flower is to plant it with no other of the same species of flower adjacent to it, and water it. It’s as simple as that!
How to clone:
- Pick a flower you want to replicate.
- Plant it all by itself.
- Water it.
- When the flower clones, dig it up and plant it one space away from the other flower.
- Repeat the process until you have the desired amount of flowers.
3. Plant effectively
There are multiple layouts for optimizing hybrid flower production. Watch the video linked above for tips on how to organize your flowers for maximum efficiency.
How to lay out your flower patch:
- Plant flowers of the same species but different color in pairs to produce offspring of a third color.
- Plant flowers of the same color and species in a grid to produce offspring of a different color.
- Water them!
2. Get the Golden Watering Can
The golden watering can is every budding botanist’s best friend. A regular watering can will water six spaces around the player, but the golden can will water nine. Plus, it takes a lot longer to break. The golden can is also the only way to produce the beautiful gold-rose plant. More information about gold roses can be found here.
How to get the golden watering can:
- Have the maximum number of villagers.
- Fully upgrade the museum and Nook’s Cranny.
- Decorate your island with furniture, fences, flowers and trees. Don’t go overboard with this step, the balance needs to be just right!
- Remove all weeds.
- Talk to Isabelle frequently to check the rating. Select “Let’s talk island evals”.
- Once you have achieved a five-star rating, talk to Isabelle to receive the golden watering can recipe.
1. Invite friends to water
The best method of breeding flowers in Animal Crossing is to invite other players over to water. Every time a different player waters a flower, its chance of producing offspring is raised by 20%, up to a maximum of 80%! Rain also counts for this method, as does villager watering. Neat, right?
How to water your flowers optimally:
- Invite five players over to your island.
- Ask them to water whichever flowers you want to breed.
- When the flowers have been watered the optimal amount, they will produce big gold sparkles.
- Wait for the next day to see the results!
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