Animal Crossing: New Leaf/Gardening

Flowers
Three to five flowers will appear in your town each day. Sometimes these are "wild" flowers that just grow and sometimes a villager will have planted them during the day. You can also purchase flowers seed bags from the Gardening Center on Main Street. Flowers should be watered, especially if they appear wilted. Doing so will revive them and the next day they will return to their normal colour. It's important to care for the flowers in your town if you hope to maintain the Perfect Town status.

Running over flowers can destroy them (12.5% chance of this happening) so it is wise to walk slowly through them. It makes sense to move flowers out of main thoroughfares in your town - for example, if they appear in front of bridges or paths to the beach.

Types

 * Roses are considered a common flower type and are available in a range of colours.
 * Cosmos are considered a common flower type and are available in a range of colours.
 * Tulips are considered a common flower type and are available in a range of colours.
 * Pansies are considered a common flower type and are available in a range of colours.
 * Lilies are a new type of flower in the available in the Animal Crossing series and are limited in colour options.
 * Violets are a new type of flower in the available in the Animal Crossing series and are limited in colour options.
 * Carnations are given as gifts during different Holidays, like to celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day.

Flower Breeding
Creating Hybrid flowers by flower breeding is an interesting way to discover new colours of flowers. This is done by pairing flowers of the same species together and can happen whether you intended it to or not. Wild flowers that grow in your town can be "child" flowers from this breeding processed. You can only breed flowers of the same spices, this means you cannot cross a tulip with a rose or a pansy with a cosmos. Some mixtures of colours do not produce child flowers at all. There is always the possibility that the child flower will be the same colour as one (or both) of the parents, this is reflected in the table below. Cross breeding can take time to produce new interesting coloured flowers.

To ensure that flowers will cross breed you must arrange them so that they are ‘touching’. For the flowers to be touching each other this means they have to be positioned alongside each other, up and down or diagonally. The empty spaces around the two flowers are the spots where child flowers will potentially grow. Planting diagonally appears to produce more opportunity for hybrids to grow. It is important to have free spaces around the flowers or hybrids will not be produced.

Jacob's Ladder
Jacob's Ladders are special flowers that only grow when your town's citizen satisfaction is at its highest. They are white, bell-shaped flowers that grow on cliffs.

These flowers can't be cross-bred and doesn't sell as much as hybrid flowers. Although, planting Jacob's Ladders next to other types of flowers can increase the chance of a successful cross-breed between the those flowers (still have to be the same species). The Jacob's Ladder is more of a trophy to prove that your town is really the best town there can be. It can be considered to be the opposite of the Rafflesia.

Bushes
Bushes have been changed (from Animal Crossing) to appear more realistic. The player is able to buy different types of bush and can plant them around town in similar manner to Trees. Bushes cannot be walked through, unlike flowers, so they can be effective at creating boundaries or "fencing" off an area.

Types

 * Pink Azalea bushes are available to buy at the Gardening Centre once it has merged with the T.I.Y Store
 * White Azalea bushes are available to buy at the Gardening Centre once it has merged with the T.I.Y Store
 * Pink Hydrangea bushes are available to buy at the Gardening Centre once it has merged with the T.I.Y Store
 * Blue Hydrangea bushes are available to buy at the Gardening Centre once it has merged with the T.I.Y Store
 * Holly bushes are available to buy at the Gardening Centre once it has merged with the T.I.Y Store
 * Sweet Olive bushes are available to buy at the Gardening Centre once it has merged with the T.I.Y Store
 * Red Hibiscus bushes are available to buy from the shop on Tortimer's Island for medals.
 * Yellow Hibiscus bushes are available to buy from the shop on Tortimer's Island for medals.