Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Hybrid Flowers Guide

Slightly refreshed 7/12/19

Kitty of Mittens Dream Address: 5D00 - 00E7 - 5874

Flowers in ACNL

There are a total of 42 flowers in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Twenty hybrids, twenty basic flowers, one 'perfect town' flower, and I'm going to include the oft-ignored dandelion. You can use flowers to:

1. Grow in town.
2. Display in your home
3. Obtain the Perfect Town* status.
4. Gift your animal villagers.
5. Wear on your person (in hair, or as accessory).
6. Display in your personal museum exhibition.

*Having the Perfect Town status for 15 days in a row earns you the coveted and symbolic Golden Watering Can, which waters flowers in a 3x3 square instead of a 1x1 square or cross shape (normal and silver cans). The status also allows the Perfect Town flower, Jacob's Ladder to randomly spawn, and unlocks the Flower Clock public works project.

Jacob's Ladders only spawn in a perfect town.

Getting All Types of Flowers

Basic flowers are flowers you can obtain without cross-breeding. You can definitely play and progress in Animal Crossing: New Leaf (ACNL) without ever having an hybrid in town. As a matter of fact, you don't really ever need to do anything in this lax, free-for-all 3DS game.

If you do decide you want more variety in your game, however, you'll need to start with the basics.

Basic Flowers in Town at Start of Game

Colors: Red, White, Yellow
Flowers: Tulip, Pansies, Cosmos, Roses

Misc: Dandelion (yellow or white puff - you can use these as you would basic flowers)

Basic Island Flowers

After you unlock Tortimer Island by paying off your first home loan and talking to ex-Mayor Tortimer by your docks, you can collect the following flowers while on island tours and bring them back to your town:

• Red, White Yellow Lilies
• Purple, White, Yellow Violets

Alternatively, there is a random chance for these flowers to spawn every day, despite not going to the Island. Villagers will also sometimes plant a random basic flower next to an existing one of the same type.

Basic Carnations

Second Sunday in May: Pink Carnation from Mom
Third Sunday in June: Red Carnation from Dad

One of each flower in game, in Kitty's personal museum exhibition. 

One of each flower in game, continued.

Jacob's Ladder

If you achieve the Perfect Town status, there is a chance for a Jacob's Ladder flower to spawn. Despite being called Jacob's Ladder in game, the flower looks far more like a Lily of the Valley. Aside from obtaining this flower from another player, this is the only known way to get this flower.

Keeping your Flowers Safe

As long as you have fewer than 10 villagers in your town, your flowers are not safe! 

The last thing you want is to spend much time and effort breeding your flowers, just to have a villager move in on top of your prized hybrids, crushing and wiping them off the face of the map. 

Villager Move-In Behavior: Why it Matters for Hybrid-Breeding

First, there are several things to note about villager move-in behavior.

1. Villagers will settle in any spot 5 spaces across and 5 square spaces back.
2. They will not make extra room for cliffs, rivers, ramps or bridges, leaving you just one space to squeeze by.
3. They will make sure to be one additional spot away from buildings so there will be two total spaces between their house and another building.

A villager's house only needs one space between a cliff and itself,  and two spaces between
 another building and itself. This wasn't a safe spot for my hybrids. :( Thanks, Rizzo.

I made the mistake of thinking the space between the town hall and the cliffs was small enough that a villager would not move here because I thought they needed an extra space for the cliffs. I was wrong, and Rizzo crushed a few black and orange hybrids when he moved in!

Using Public Work Projects to Make Safe Spots

Armed with the 5x5 spaces knowledge, you can place Public Work Projects (PWP) to create a space smaller than that.

This public works project creates spaces where villagers cannot settle - therefore safe for flowers!

I placed a stone tablet at the corner of a cliff to create a safe spot. This creates a 5x5 safe spot.
Note that the red and gold flowers on the top left would not be safe if I did not have another project to the left (not shown).

The most straight-forward use of the fence Public Work Project.
Flowers can crossbreed in the fence, BUT only if there is space for a new flower to pop up adjacent.

Spaces directly next to buildings or public work projects are guaranteed to be safe
 from being crushed by villager houses. Take advantage of this!

Although your house is not a public works project, it is a building you chose to place. Placing a house strategically can create ample flower safe-zones. I placed my house on a narrow strip of land between two rivers so that there's 4 spaces in front and behind my house. Since 5 spaces are required front-back for a villager's house, these flowers are safe!

I placed my house on a narrow strip of land between rivers so that there's 4 spaces
in front and behind my house so both sides are safe from villager move-ins.

Hybrid Combinations

If you're lucky enough to have one, Jacob's Ladders increases the chance
of two flowers spawning a hybrid instead of a basic flower.
This arrangement allows for pink (red+white) and black (red+red) hybrids to spawn.

Even if you knew nothing about cross-breeding flowers for hybrids, it's easy to accidentally breed hybrids simply by placing same-type basic flowers next to each other.

1. Two of same-type flowers of the combinations below must be touching. Side-by-side or corners.
2. There must be at least one empty space in the 8 squares around either flower for a new flower to spawn.
3. Spawn chances are calculated at 6am every day, when the town refreshes.

Jacob's Ladder to Encourage Hybrids

Planting a Jacob's Ladder increases the chance two flowers chosen to breed will produce a hybrid, instead of a basic flower. The exact percent increase is not currently proven or available.

List of Hybrids Using BASIC Flowers

This is a list of hybrids using BASIC flowers. For flowers that require two levels of breeding or special conditions, see the Advanced Hybrids section below.

HYBRID	PARENT A	PARENT B
TULIPS
Pink	Red	White
Orange	Red	Yellow
Black	Red	Red
PANSIES
Orange (Red/Yellow)	Red	Yellow
Blue	White	White
COSMOS
Pink	Red	White
Orange	Red	Yellow
Black	Red	Red
ROSES
Pink	Red	White
Orange	Red	Yellow
Purple	White	White
Black	Red	Red
LILIES
Pink	Red	White
Orange	Red	Yellow
Black	Red	Red
VIOLETS
Blue	Purple	White
CARNATIONS
White	Red	Pink

In the appropriate cases, it is also possible to breed Black flowers using Orange flowers instead of Red, but it seems to me the chances are slimmer because the Orange flower counts as half Yellow.

This way, if selected for cross-breeding, only a purple and white will
be paired up to maximize your chance at a blue violet.

To ensure you don't get unwanted combinations, such as purple violet + purple violet for yet another purple violet, arrange flowers you want to breed so that only they touch, as shown above.

Since there is space nearby, a blue violet can appear if you're lucky.

Note that the chances for each flower varies.

Advanced Flower Breeding: Two-step Hybrids, Hybrid Parents

Some colors require using hybrids (from Basic Hybrids section above) to breed more hybrids!

HYBRID	PARENT A	PARENT B
Purple Tulip	Orange Tulip	Orange Tulip
Black Cosmo	Orange Cosmo	Orange Cosmo
Special Red Pansy*	Blue Pansy	Red Pansy
Purple Pansy	Special Red Pansy	Special Red Pansy
Special Orange Pansy*	Blue Pansy	Orange Pansy
Purple Pansy	Orange Pansy	Orange Pansy
Special Red Rose*	Orange Rose	Purple Rose
Blue Rose	Special Red Rose	Special Red Rose
Gold Rose	Water a wilted Black Rose (you'll need the Beautiful Town Ordinance inactive for it to wilt) with a Golden watering can and wait til the next day.
* Breed "Special" basic-colored flowers on a beach where no wildflowers spawn to prevent confusion with Ordinary Basic-color flowers.

Breed "Special" basic-colored flowers on a beach where no wildflowers
spawns prevents confusion with Ordinary Basic-color flowers.

Aside from the Gold Rose, any same color flower can breed with its own for a CHANCE at
another of the same color. For example, two purple pansies has a chance of yielding a red pansy instead.

Arranging Flowers to Maximize Hybrids and Minimize Undesired Cross-Breeding

You can arrange your flowers to your liking while encouraging hybrids at the same time.

I go for a controlled natural/wild look in my arrangements. With this arrangement,
I most often find red and pink lilies, occasionally white, and rarely black lilies.

Maximize the chance desirable breeding occurs by isolating flowers you do not want to breed.

I do not want any more yellow flowers, but I do want them in my town. To do this, I arrange the flowers so that no two yellow flowers of the same type touch. This allows me to have them on display without the risk of them being randomly selected as one of the flowers to breed each morning.

You can display flowers without risk of them breeding.

You can also display multi-color flowers together without risk of them
 breeding as long as no two of the same type touch!

Extra: Watering Your Flower vs Rain

Having the Beautiful Town ordinance in effect means you don't need to worry about watering your flowers to keep them from wilting and then dying/disappearing on you.

If you do not have the Beautiful Town ordinance in effect, watering flowers:

1. Prevents watered flowers from wilting the next day.
2. Revives wilted (grey) flowers and prevents them from dying the next day.
3. Increases the chance watered flowers will breed with another flower next to it the next day.

Rain will revive all wilted flowers, prevent flowers from wilting the next day, but will not increase the chance for existing flowers to breed.

Flower Spawning Rarity

The number of flowers that can spawn each day is random, but is affected by a few factors:

1. Beautiful Town ordinance. Having this in effect will increase the number of flowers that spawn every day. This can mean normal flowers or hybrids, again, calculated randomly.
2. The day following rain. More flowers appear than usual on days following a rain. It is not known for sure if these effects stack.
3. Watering your flowers. Doing so increases the likelihood two adjacent, same-type flowers will cross-breed and produce a new flower the next day.

Flower type also affects the chance it will spawn. Here is a list of rarity based on flower type from Liquefy's Acnl guide on GameFAQs. Liquefy generally provides very detailed and accurate information based on official guides and resources for a variety of games.

Most common

1. Red, White, Yellow Tulips; Red, White, Yellow Pansies; Red, White, Yellow Cosmos; Red, White, Yellow Roses; Red, White Yellow Lilies; Purple, White, Yellow Violets; Red, Pink Carnations
2. Pink Tulips, Purple Tulips, Purple Pansies, Orange Pansies, Pink Cosmos, Orange Cosmos, Purple Roses, Pink Roses, Orange Roses, Pink Lilies, Orange Lilies, Blue Violets, White Carnations
3. Black Tulips, Orange Tulips, Blue Pansies, Black Cosmos, Black Roses, Black Lilies, Jacob's Ladders
4. Blue Roses

Rarest