How To Get Blue Roses In in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2024)

For fans of cross-breeding to grow rare flower colors in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, no bloom may be more elusive and challenging to grow than ACNH's Blue Roses. The Blue Rose can add a rich pop of color to any garden, but it takes several generations of cross-breeding to obtain. The complex DNA codes of flowers in the game and many possible Rose color combinations make the Blue Rose take quite a few weeks, or even months, to grow.

Naturally, growing Blue Roses can be a point of pride for any player. Once grown, they can be worn as an accessory or used to decorate an Animal Crossing: New Horizon's player's home or island. For flower enthusiasts and completionists alike, cross-breeding Blue Roses on the island is a must. However, players need to be wary because, like in real-world botany, Roses can have different genetics than their parents and might produce the wrong color. Here's how to improve your chances and make Blue Roses in ACNH as efficiently as possible.

Flower Breeding Quick Guide

Shapes Matter

There are a variety of ways to grow flowers on your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island, but those who are serious about collecting every flower will know that you need to do a lot of work to make each flower's color appear.

There is no perfect method for breeding flowers, but when following key steps, you can get every color with patience and careful placement. There is nothing like having a beautiful island full of magnificent flowers of every color, and there is no better way to show off your island, either.

Some changes have been made to flower breeding since the launch of the game, and new important pieces of information have been added that will be helpful. The biggest change is that any flower now has the chance to self-propagate without having a second flower to cross with.

This type of flower duplication will create the same type of flower when it's watered if it is not touching another flower of the same species. It has to have an empty space next to it, and it will not do so if there is a flower it can breed by touching it. However, this can be very helpful when breeding the right flowers to get Blue Roses.

According to ConCon on YouTube, the Diamond method of flower farming is the most efficient, putting two flowers across from each other on a cross-axis. The other popular grid is a Checkboard style; when you expand either of them, you end up with both grids side-by-side. So, either way, your odds should be about the same. Just ensure only the flower colors you need to get the color you want are in the grid.

Both are displayed in the two tables below, where x is where you plant a flower, and the empty boxes represent empty spaces between them:

Lastly, there is no limit to how many child flowers can spawn in a single day, so getting a fair number of flowers each day with proper watering and maintenance is possible. Make sure to remove any flowers that do not have the right genes to produce the flowers you want.

Getting Blue Roses

The Preparation Stage

The process for growing Blue Roses in Animal Crossingrequires several generations of different color cross-breeding, and because of this, getting the right genetic color is often up to chance. Using more basic growing methods will only spawn Blue Roses 1.6% of the time. Players may need to use a lengthier and more involved method to improve the chances of growing a Blue Rose to a maximum of 25%.

Players must carve out a specific place to create the necessary diamond or checkerboard pattern and allow flowers to flourish. You may want to create more than one to start breeding flowers of different varieties at the same time.

The location can also be reused to repeat the process until Blue Roses eventually spawn. Even when carefully selecting flowers, Roses may be the "wrong" color, at least genetically. There are ways for players to check and make sure they have the "right" genetically coded colors through test cross-breeds, which is part of the process.

Special White Roses

The First Step Toward Blue Roses

The only way to breed Blue Roses is through Hybrid Red Roses, which require special White Roses to grow properly. These are different from the naturally-occurring Red Roses in the game and even different from regular hybrid Red Roses.

While some will suggest breeding hybrid Red Roses from Purple and Orange Roses, using a more complicated breeding technique that includes the special White Rose will increase the chance of Blue Roses spawning.

Players should purchase Red, Yellow, and White Rose seeds from Nook's Cranny. Flower seed varieties available at Nook's Cranny change daily, so it may take players a few days to get all the right seeds.

If the player's island does not grow Roses or does not grow a certain color of Roses, seeds will not be available at Nook's Cranny, no matter how many times a player checks back. In this case, players should travel to neighboring islands or visit a friend's island to purchase the right seeds.

Players first need to cross-breed for Purple Roses. Cross-breeding two White Roses together gives the chance to create Purple Rose hybrids. As with all breeding flowers, the White Rose seeds should be planted in a diagonal checkerboard pattern (or a diamond pattern) with one space between them on all sides to encourage cross-breeding.

When purple roses grow, there will be roses of another color that will spawn in the area. Players should not waste time discarding the non-purple rose as it may interfere with spawning “good” purple roses.

Once Purple Roses spawn, players should take those Purple Roses and cross them with Yellow Rose seeds to get White Roses. This cross should always yield White Roses. Players need to then breed the White Roses with the Purple Roses from the previous step to get new, or "good," Purple Roses.

When players cross-breed for these "good" Purple Roses, there is around a 50% chance for them to be "good" and around a 50% chance for them to be "bad." The qualifiers "good" and "bad" here indicate whether the offspring Roses are good for moving the cross-breeding process forward and eventually spawning Animal Crossing's Blue Roses.

To test if a special Purple Rose is good and has the potential to produce Blue Roses, players can try cross-breeding the Purple Rose with more Yellow Rose seeds. Bad Purple Roses in this cross will produce White Roses 100% of the time, while good Purple Roses will produce both White and Yellow Roses.

Players need to then cross the good Purple Roses together to grow special White Roses. The bad ones can be discarded. Players looking to grow many Blue Roses will likely want many special White Roses, so they should repeat this process as often as possible to increase their chances of obtaining a Blue Rose.

Hybrid Red Roses

Black and Red Roses

Hybrid Red Roses typically come from a cross between Orange and Purple Roses. However, they can also come from crossing Black Roses and special White Roses. To grow Black Roses easily, players should cross-breed Red Rose seeds.

Once Black Roses spawn, players should cross the Black Roses with the special White Roses. Eventually, this combination should create Hybrid Red Roses. This type of flower can also be used to create Gold Roses in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, making it well worth your while to grow as many as possible.

The Final Steps

Your Patience Has Paid Off

Once players have used Black Roses in Animal Crossing: New Horizons to make the Hybrid Red Roses, they should cross them with the Special White Roses to breed Orange Roses. While Orange Roses can be generated through other cross-breeding techniques, this is the best way for players to have the highest possible chance of obtaining Blue Roses.

Players will need to cross this Orange Rose with the Special White Roses. This should eventually spawn special Hybrid Red Roses. These are the player's tickets to Blue Roses.

Players will need to cross two or more of the special Hybrid Red Roses to make Blue Roses in ACNH. Players should place as many special Red Roses for cross-breeding as possible to further increase their chances of growing Blue Roses. Blue Roses are also self-spawning, meaning only having one should be enough to grow more on the island.

Blue Rose Sell Price

Worth The Wait

Blue Roses only sell for up to 1,000 bells, the highest price of any flower in the game, as they are tied with Gold Roses. However, because of the lengthy growing process, these are not great flowers to sell for profit. Instead, players should use them for decoration. Blue Roses are the main ingredient for the DIY Blue Rose Crown, which players can wear.

With a lot of patience (and, for some players, time traveling), players can grow this rare flower and display it proudly on their island home. If Animal Crossing: New Horizons players need to follow a visual guide to help them make Blue Roses, they can do so following the steps shown by DazzaBound in the video above.

Video Credit: DazzaBound/YouTube, ConCon/YouTube

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Franchise

Animal Crossing

Platform(s)

Switch

Released

March 20, 2020

Developer(s)

Nintendo EPD

Publisher(s)

Nintendo

Genre(s)

Simulation