One of the new additions to Animal Crossing: Wild World is the ability to breed flowers. From the time we first heard about this feature at the Digital Life Convention, AXA staff and members have been speculating as to exactly how hybridization would work. After an extended period of game testing, AXA has produced the following guide. Credits to Animal Crossing: Wild World researchers are listed below.

Hybrid events occur randomly in Animal Crossing: Wild World game. Every day at 6:00am, roughly 3-5 new flowers spawn in your village. These flowers may be wild, or they may be the product of two parent flowers. Parent flowers may spawn the standard color flowers, or, if conditions are ideal, a second generation color (that is, a color other than red, white, or yellow). Flower seeds in standard colors can be bought from Tom Nook to set up hybrid plots.

In order to get two flowers to cross, you must have two flowers of the same type (ie, two pansies, two roses, etc.) adjacent to one another. If two flowers successfully produce offspring, their child will appear in any of the nine squares that surround either of the two parents. It is important to note that flowers will not reproduce if all of the nine squares surrounding both parents are blocked by obstacles such as trees, rocks, or patterns placed on the ground. As a clarification, it is perfectly okay for some of the spots to be blocked. In fact, to increase the probablity of successful hybridization, we encourage users to arrange flowers so that that each flower touches multiple potential breeding partners. Examples of basic successful spawn diagrams are shown below. Red squares indicate parent positions, and blue squares indicate possible children spawns.

Example Hybrid Plots

You do not need a perfect town to grow hybrids. Research has shown that hybrids will grow just as effectively in a non-perfect town, assuming that hybridization conditions have been maximized. The best way to maximize hybrids is to eliminate non-matching parents. For example, two white tulips should never be placed adjacent to one another; this will only yield non-hybrid spawns. Hybrid plots should be placed away from obstacles, signs, river edges, and buildings. Maximizing the number of spawn points maximizes your chances of getting a hybrid. Finally, because there are only so many flower spawns that occur per day, try to satisfy your gardening villagers by surrounding their houses with matching parents. If they have a garden of their own, your villagers will stop planting new flowers and detracting from your daily flower count.

We previously suggested that Jacob's Ladders, when placed adjacent to a plot that meets hybridization conditions, seem to increase the rate of successful hybrids produced by that plot. Jacob's Ladders are flowers that grow wild and resemble Bluebells or Lily of the Valley. They appear on days when your town is perfect during the flower spawn time. There is no way of conclusively proving their effectiveness, but the increased hybrid rate people that people have reported may simply be coincidence.

Only water dried up flowers; watering healthy flowers is a waste of time, and does not encourage hybridization. There is no way to prevent your hybrids from drying up, short of leaving them indoors. Any flower placed indoors, however, obviously cannot spawn new flowers.

Hybridization events do not necessarily occur even if conditions are ideal. Sometimes it takes a bit of patience before you see your first successful hybrid. Hybrids can be quickly reproduced by crossing a hybrid with another hybrid (excluding gold roses).

Notes: Crosses of unlisted basic color x hybrid and hybrid x hybrid have been excluded from the tables because they do not yield new colors, just duplicates of the parent colors. For example, a pink rose crossed with a white rose will yield either pink or white roses. Also, order of the parents does not matter. A red x white cross yields the same results as a white x red cross. There are 6 rose hybrids and 3 hybrids for every other crossable flower.

Roses

Cross Possible Outcomes A dried up black rose will turn gold the following day if it is watered with the golden watering can. Dried roses appear brown and dead looking. The golden watering is acquired only after maintaining a perfect town rating for two weeks. Speak to Pelly or Phyllis to receive it.

Tulips

Cross Possible Outcomes

Pansies

Cross Possible Outcomes

Cosmos

Cross Possible Outcomes

This guide was compiled by Jess and images were created by Crowster. Special thanks to all the AXA Researchers who contributed: Abrecan, ac-town, Allen, Benzar, betagamma, Bubble Monkey, Coopa, CrossingFanatic, dbneli, Diggeh, Eliwood, Fink, Goatroper, homesliceme, Hyde, ihaveatoe623, Jess, Kamek, Katon, Kawamura, Kerdor, koebi, komodo396, Koo, kookigrl, kreeningsons, Krysta, kymtendo, Leanne, Liquefy, Lloyd Irving, Luigicrowd, max-ing, Mewtwo59, mirin, Monkeyboi, Morigale, Mr._Action, mynameismyown, Mystic Fire, Naesala, NB Wook, NumberFourtyThree, onon, orangeroo24, Patta, Peculiarperson, Picaro, pleasehelp1991, Prime Thian, pumpkinboo, rjxshadow, rupan777, scrabbles12, shadow_thehedghog, sirAnger, Sister Pink, Slpr100, Smallredbox, sparklesfantastic, Squirtle, St. Killer, Syron, The Hof, Tuba, WildGuy, Xairip, Xelath, Xenon, zelda123456789, and Zolthorg. Thanks to SlayThem for figuring out that yellow x yellow tulips ALSO spawn black tulips. Thanks to Liquefy for discovering that hybrids do spawn in "bad" towns, and rupan777 and Ladysarajane for letting me do some gardening in their towns. A final thank you to Naesala who not only discovered the gold rose combination, but also spent an extraordinary amount of time traveling and researching.