I, personally, just love gardening in AC:NL. They are so many choices you can do. You can chop down trees, create cross breeding spots, create flower meadows, create gardens and so much more. But do you really understand gardening? Well, it’s time to get our hands dirty and get some gardening done to achieve the perfect town status! (This guide might also contain spoilers!) So before we get any gardening done, let’s read about gardening facts first. Here is the order we are going to read though.
Fruit/Tropical Fruit, Bushes, Flowers, Bamboo, Money tree, Jacob Ladder, Trees, Grass Deterioration and Weeds.
Fruit is a common item that grows in trees in every animal crossing game. Fruit can be eaten or sold for bells. Each town has a native fruit that sells for 100 bells. If you sell some fruit at another town (which your fruit isn’t native at your friends town) you’ll get 500 bells. In new leaf, you’ll get perfect fruit which you can sell at Re-tail for 20% more bells then the Nooklings store on main street. However, if you sell your perfect fruit (Delicious Apples for Japanese players) at another players town and they have a different native fruit from you, you’ll get more bells. I sold 5 baskets of perfect peaches at Alice’s town and I got 198k! In new leaf there are more fruit available. There is 5 native fruits you can have, the variety are cherry, pear, apples, peach or oranges.
Tropical fruit are also fruit that you can get from the island, they are not native fruit which means they will sell for 500 bells each, they also cannot be perfect fruit. It appears only on Tortimer island and you can take the tropical fruit home to grow. The tropical fruit that you can get is Coconuts, Bananas (Only grow if planted on the beach) Lemon, Lychees, Durians and Mangoes. Persimmons are available to buy at T&T Emporium after passing Gracie’s fashion check 4 times.
Bushes are a type of plant that first appeared in animal forest (game cube) and then later appeared in animal crossing new leaf. Bushes can be bought at Leif’s gardening store during T.I.Y or Emporium later in the game. To unlock emporium, you have to pass Gracie’s fashion check 4 times. In Animal Forest, the players can walk though the bush, however on new leaf bushes have been redesigned to look like the real thing. There are 4 types of bushes. White/pink azalea bushes, blue/pink hydrangea bushes, red/yellow hibiscus bushes, sweet olive and holly bushes. Each of these bushes blooms at different times. For example azalea blooms in April. It’s also important to mention that the red/yellow hibiscus bushes can only be purchased from the island, the guide below shows the flowering time for the bushes; (credit linked on the photo click to view the site, dates are American – MM/DD).
Flowers are a item that can decorate your town in animal crossing games. In all of the animal crossing games you must have flowers to create a perfect town. In animal crossing new leaf, if you have the beautiful town ordinance in effect villagers will plant flowers randomly in your town. There are 7 types of flowers in animal crossing new leaf. These flowers are lilies, violets, tulips, cosmos, roses, pansies and Jacob ladders. All flowers, apart from the Jacob Ladders, can crossbreed. You must be extremely careful whilst running during all times near hybrids and flowers. If you run near flowers, like hybrids, you could kill them. According to the animal crossing wiki, there will be a 12.5% chance that the flower will die. The only flower to go into the character’s mouth/teeth are roses but if put on the player wants to wear any of the remaining flowers such as violets, the character will place the flower into the player’s hair – this is also the same for dandelions and 4 leaf clovers. It is also possible to hold flowers like dandelion puffs, which is the wilted version of a dandelions.
Bamboo is a new plant that was introduced in animal crossing new leaf. It can be bought for 3k from Leif at T&T Emporium. Bamboo is very independent because when you dig holes around it for more bamboo shoots ,the shoots fall into the holes. If you don’t collect these shoots, they’ll grow on their own creating a bamboo forest. If bamboo dies it will prevent clogging up space for more bamboo to grow. Bamboo can be very useful for players to have as it sells for a lot of bells!
Money tree are a type of tree that first appeared on animal forest. It will only work if you have a golden shovel. You must bury a good amount of bells for it to work. For example, if I buried 70k (70,000 bells) my percentage of getting a money tree will be 70% and the percentage of not getting a money tree is 30%. This works on all games and is super easy to do if you have a golden shovel of course.
Jacob Ladders are a very unique flower in the whole animal crossing series. It only spawns when the player’s town is in perfect condition. Once your town has been perfect for 15-16 days, you’ll receive a golden watering can, which on animal crossing new leaf it can water up to 9 flowers at a time. Jacob Ladders will spawn around the cliffs. If you plant two Jacob Ladders next to each other, they won’t cross breed. However if you plant a Jacob Ladder next to flowers that you want to cross breed it increases the chance of the hybrid being created. A Jacob Ladder looks like a bell like flower. In reality, Jacob ladders are called ‘Lily of the valley’.
Grass Deterioration (also known as Animal Tracks [Japanese], Desire Lines or Grass Wear) is when the grass is being destroyed by the player’s moments around the town. If the grass deterioration is really bad, it could be impossible to find snowballs in winter. In animal crossing new leaf you can fix the Grass wear by time traveling. All movement on the grass will slowly effect it but running on the grass itself will do the most damage. Grass is the most vulnerable in winter and the most resilient during spring and summer. The only reason why it was brought into animal crossing was to create paths, but players may run away or run towards insects like scorpions, banded dragonflies and also giant petail dragonflies. If you place patterns above the damaged grass, it won’t affect it at all. It will stay as it is. Placing flowers and watering them will help, but don’t step on them otherwise it won’t effect re-growing the grass.
Weeds are one of the most common plants in the animal crossing series. Everyday at least 2 weeds will grow at 6 am everyday. In order to get perfect town you must weed everyday. Clovers make their first appearance in animal crossing wild world, but they are not classified as a weed. Dandelions and Dandelion puffs also appear as weeds in the non-GameCube games (like Animal crossing wild world, etc) but they serve the same function as a normal flower. A Rafflesia is also a massive weed that will appear when you have the worst town rating. You cannot remove a Rafflesia by picking it up or digging it up. To get rid of this weed you have to remove all the weeds on the acre. The Rafflesia is the opposite to a jacob’s ladder.
~Kiki From Meadow~ 
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