Animal Crossing New Horizons Flower Breeding guide: How to grow your garden in style

Flower breeding in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is no small undertaking. Players will need to create grids of flowers with specific genetics for the chance of obtaining specific colors. In addition to this, certain flower types are only available during set months. This can make breeding a challenge when first getting started.

Many players will likely accidentally breed their first few color variations before settling down to seriously breed out each of the different colors. In this guide, we will go over breeding mechanics, flower colors, and the best options for creating flowers of every color in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

The Escapist recaps

• Flower breeding relies on genetics in New Horizons.
• You will need to pair multiple generations of flowers to get the desired results.
• Using a checkerboard grid planting is the best option for breeding flowers.
• Flowers can clone themselves.
• It is best to keep track of what you are breeding in a notebook.

All flowers and when they can be bought

All islands in New Horizons have a native flower type, just like their native fruit tree type. To obtain any other flowers, however, players will need to either receive flowers as gifts from other players or purchase rotating flower seeds from Nook’s Cranny or Leif. They can also be obtained from deserted islands, but this is less predictable.

Below are all of the flowers and when they can be purchased:

• Roses – May, June, July, October, November, December
• Tulips – March, April, May, June
• Pansies – January, February, March, April, November, December
• Cosmos – July, August, September, October, November
• Lilies – June, July, August, September
• Hyacinths – February, March, April
• Windflowers – January, February, March, April, May, December
• Mums – January, August, September, October, November, December

Flower breeding and how to get new colors

When it comes to flower breeding in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it’s not the type of flower that matters, but its color genetics. Players can set up a breeding checkerboard with any type of flowers to try and get the correct colors. For example, if you are trying to get pink lilies, and you have white lilies and red roses, you can place these in a grid to get either pink roses or pink lilies as long as they have the right cross of genetics.

New Horizons has set its breeding system up by simulating real genetics in plants. Each flower has three genes, except for Roses which have four, and these genes need to be expressed in a specific way to get the desired color

To breed flowers, you will need to create a checkerboard grid with open spaces between the flowers, as shown in the image above. This gives offspring flowers a place to grow. When they spawn, you will need to remove them from the grid and replant them in a new location to keep the grid spawning. Offspring of these grids can be used to expand the breeding grid, as they will have genetics that mix the two colors, even if the desired color isn’t expressed.

Below are all of the flowers you can breed together for the best odds of getting new colors in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

• Lilies
  • Seed Red + Seed Yellow = Bred Orange 60%
  • Seed Red + Seed Red = Bred Black 25%
  • Seed Red + Seed Red = Bred Pink 25%
  • Seed Red + Seed White = Bred Pink 50%
• Cosmos
  • Seed Red + Seed Yellow = Bred Orange 100%
  • Seed Red + Seed White = Bred Pink 100%
  • Red Orange + Bred Orange =  Bred Black 6%
• Hyacinths
  • Seed Red + Seed Yellow = Bred Orange 50%
  • Seed Red + Seed White = Bred Pink 50%
  • Seed White + Seed White = Breed Blue 25%
  • Bred Orange + Bred Orange = Bred Purple 6%
• Mums
  • Seed Red + Seed White = Bred Pink 100%
  • Seed White + Seed White = Bred Purple 25%
  • Seed Red + Seed Yellow = Bred Yellow 100%
  • Bred Yellow + Bred Yellow = Bred Green 6%
  • Bred Yellow + Bred Yellow = Gen 3 Purple 25%
  • Gen 3 Purple + Gen 3 Purple = Bred Green 25%
• Pansies
  • Seed Red + Seed Yellow = Bred Orange 100%
  • Seed White + Seed White = Bred Blue 25%
  • Seed Red + Bred Blue = Bred Red 100%
  • Bred Red + Bred Red = Bred Purple 6%
• Windflowers
  • Seed Red + Seed Orange = Bred Pink 100%
  • Seed White + Seed White = Bred Blue 25%
  • Seed Red + Bred Blue =  Bred Red 100%
  • Bred Pink + Bred Blue = Bred Red 25%
  • Bred Pink + Bred Blue = Bred Pink 25%
  • Bred Red + Bred Red = Bred Purple 6%
  • Bred Red + Bred Pink = Bred Purple 6%
  • Bred Pink + Bred Pink = Bred Purple 6%
• Tulips
  • Seed Red + Seed Yellow = Bred Orange 50%
  • Seed Red + Seed Red = Bred Black 25%
  • Seed Red + Seed White = Bred Pink 50%
  • Bred Orange + Bred Orange = Bred Purple 12%
• Roses
  • Seed Red + Seed Yellow = Bred Orange 50%
  • Seed Red + Seed Red = Bred Black 25%
  • Seed Red + Seed Red = Bred Pink 25%
  • Seed White + Seed Red = Bred Pink 50%
  • Seed White + Seed White = Bred Purple 25%
  • Bred Black + Seed Yellow = Bred Orange 100%
  • Bred Orange + Bred Purple = Bred Red 25%
  • Bred Red + Bred Red = Bred Blue 1.6%

The best way to breed flowers in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is to stay organized and keep your bred flowers away from other flowers. This will ensure that nothing gets mixed up. These could be planted in other areas of your island or stored for when you are ready to start the second-generation breeding. With this structure, you’ll have every color of flower possible in a very short span of time.

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