Animal Crossing: New Horizons Flowers Guide - How to Get All Flower Breeds

It’s safe to say the flower system in Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a major source of confusion. What possible flower combinations are there? What exactly are the requirements for the flowers to cross pollinate? Our Animal Crossing Flowers Guide will explain what you can do and how you can more easily accomplish your goals.

What Determines Your Starting Flowers?

According to player reports, your birth month is actually what determines your starting flowers. So unless you feel like moving your birthday when you create your island, there’s nothing you can do to swap up what flowers you get.

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How to Get More Flowers

While you can purchase seeds for the flower types that start on your island, the easiest way to get more flower types is by visiting a friend’s island. They can provide you with the base colors you need to create the rest. You can also, of course, just get all of the flower types from them if you’d rather just skip to having what you need. Just make sure to get two of each so you can keep breeding more. To put them in your inventory, use your shovel. If you try using your hands you’ll just pick up the blooms which are meant for crafting. Those will not grow if you plant them in the ground.

You can also get new flower types on mystery islands using Nook Miles Tickets. Sometimes you may even stumble upon a very rare hybrid flower island which will have many of the flower types below!

How to Create Hybrid Flowers

Each day, any flowers that have been watered and are touching have a chance to spawn a hybrid flower the next day. You can tell flowers have been watered if they’re sparkling.

We recommend planting your flowers in an “X” or crosshatch pattern. This ensures that there is always a diagonal space for the new flower to bloom at. Hybrids only pop up on a diagonal space from their parent flowers so this is important.

Thanks to the Animal Crossing community for trying to piece together all of these flower combinations. We’ve sourced the list below from multiple posts since any given infographic seems to be missing one or two results. For a more visual look at flower creation, check out MarthVader’s infographic.

animal crossing cosmos

Cosmos Flower Breeds

  • Base Colors: Red, Yellow, White
  • Orange = Red + Yellow
  • Pink = Red + White
  • Black = Red + Red

animal crossing lilies

Lilies Flower Breeds

  • Base Colors: Red, Yellow, White
  • Orange = Red + Yellow
  • Pink = Red + White
  • Black = Red + Red

animal crossing mums

Mums Flower Breeds

  • Base Colors: White, Red
  • Purple = White + White
  • Pink = Red + White
  • Hybrid Yellow = Red + Yellow
  • Hybrid Purple = Hybrid Yellow + Hybrid Yellow
  • Green = Hybrid Purple + Hyrbid Purple

animal crossing pansies

Pansies Flower Breeds

  • Base Colors: Red, Yellow, White, Blue
  • Orange = Red + Yellow
  • Blue = White + White
  • Hybrid Red = Red + Blue
  • Hybrid Purple = Hybrid Red + Hybrid Red

animal crossing tulips

Tulips Flower Breeds

  • Base Colors: Red, Yellow, White
  • Orange = Red + Yellow
  • Black = Red + Red
  • Purple = Orange + Orange
  • Pink = Red + White

animal crossing HYACINTHS

Hyacinths Flower Breeds

  • Base Colors: Red, Yellow, White, Blue
  • Orange = Red + Yellow
  • Pink = Red + White
  • Blue = White + White
  • Purple = Orange + Orange

animal crossing roses

Roses Flower Breeds

  • Base Colors: Red, Yellow, White
  • Black = Red + Red
  • Orange = Red + Yellow
  • Pink = Red + White
  • Purple = White + White
  • Hybrid Red = Purple + Orange
  • Blue = Hybrid Red + Hybrid Red
  • Gold = Black + Golden Watering Can

animal crossing windflowers

Windflowers Flower Breeds

  • Base Colors: White, Orange, Red
  • Blue = White + White
  • Blue = Orange + White
  • Pink = Orange + Red
  • Hybrid Red = Pink + Blue
  • Purple = Hybrid Red + Hybrid Red

About the Author

Dillon Skiffington

Dillon is the Senior Game Guides Editor at Fanbyte. He's been writing about video games for 15 years and has thousands of hours logged in FFXIV and hundreds of hours in Destiny 2.