Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ next holiday event – Nature Day – dropped earlier today along with a new update. Revolving around the friendly plant-loving sloth, Leif will appear in the town square randomly like Kicks or any other pop-up shop vendor. This character sells a variety of different flowers and seeds that you can plant all throughout your island. While it’s not required, this does help improve your town’s overall image and you can now make a hedge maze to trap annoying islanders in.
Where to Get Shrubs
As previously stated, you can only purchase shrubs from Leif at the time of writing this. Now, this may change once Leif leaves the island after the event, but for now he’s your go-to guy. He will randomly appear throughout the event in the town plaza. Across five days of time traveling, Leif appeared out front three of the five days. His inventory does also change, so make sure to check in within him whenever he’s around.
Here’s what we’ve seen Leif selling so far:
- Pink-azalea Start – 280 Bells
- White-azalea Start – 280 Bells
- Red-hibiscus Start – 280 Bells
- Yellow-hibiscus Start – 280 Bells
- Pink-camellia Start – 280 Bells
- Red-camellia Start – 280 Bells
- Orange-tea-olive start – 280 Bells
- Yellow-tea-olive start – 280 Bells
- Red-cosmos bag – 240 Bells
- Red-mum bag – 240 Bells
- Red-lily bag – 240 Bells
- White-cosmos bag – 240 Bells
- White-mum bag – 240 Bells
- White-lily bag – 240 Bells
- Yellow-cosmos bag – 240 Bells
- Yellow-mum bag – 240 Bells
- Yellow-lily bag – 240 Bells
Additionally, Leif will also purchase any Clumps of Weeds from you at an inflated price. It’s not Turnip levels of Bells, but you can now get 20 Bells a pop from Leif. Keep this in mind while you’re gardening, as it’s a nice way to quickly make up the cost of purchasing plants from him.
How to Plant Shrubs
When you buy a shrub from Leif it’s important to note that it’s a seed and will take time to grow. From the time I planted it, a single shrub took two additional days to fully grow with me using the watering can to speed the process along. You won’t need to dig a hole to plant a shrub, just walk in front of the spot you want the shrub to be, select the seed, and your Villager will automatically plant it. Now you just have to wait a couple of days and your shrub will be fully grown.
“But where are the flowers?” I hear you saying when you arrive on your island to find just a boring old shrub. It turns out that the flowers on the shrub are seasonal and will only bloom during certain times. For example, the White and Pink Azaleas will only bloom in the Spring. So if you want some shrubs with flowers specifically for this season, those are the two you want to purchase. Otherwise, work under the assumption that the shrubs will only occasionally have flowers during the right season.
Shrub Seasons
As we just mentioned, these shrubs won’t have flowers all year round. Here’s when you can expect them to bloom, from earliest in the year to latest. Keep in mind some of them won’t bloom until the middle or the end of the month. Hibiscus for example won’t grow flowers until late in July.
- Camellias: February & March
- Azaleas: April & May
- Hydrangeas: June & July
- Hibiscus: July & September
- Tea Olives: September & October
- Holly: November & December
Shrubs can be a nice way to spruce up your town, so make sure to snap some up whenever Leif is hanging about!
