We all know how essential trees are in Animal Crossing: New Horizons from gaining money to getting fruit, but they’re also vital for properly decorating your island. But did you know that you don’t have to have dozens of large trees crowding around everything? You can stunt tree growth instead, leaving the tree at various stages to flex your creativity and make your island that much more unique. If you don’t know how to stunt tree growth, our Animal Crossing: New Horizons strategy guide should help.
Stunt Tree Growth in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Once you plant saplings into the ground, they have to go through growth stages before reaching their full adult size. You can stop this growth at any point by planting a fruit sapling right behind the tree. Trees always need at least one block of space that’s empty around them to grow, so by blocking a space off, you will effectively stunt the tree growth.
Also with this simple strategy guide, you can choose any type of fruit sapling you have in Animal Crossing: New Horizons as it won’t develop thanks to the tree sapling under it. Also, planting exactly one space behind the tree sapling is essential as all you’ll see is the stunted tree rather than the extra fruit sapling behind it.
Remember: it takes three days for trees to reach their full growth. So, it stands to reason that you will want to interfere with the growth stage before the three days are up. You can stop it at any time, giving you the freedom to dress up your island with various sized trees throughout for a more distinctive look.
Moving Your Trees From Place to Place
In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you don’t have to completely chop down your tree if you don’t want it there anymore. Instead, you can eat a fruit and use your shovel to dig it up and plop it somewhere else. This makes decorating your island with different-sized trees much easier.
Just don’t forget to put a new fruit sapling behind the tree once you give it a new home else you’ll risk it going through its growth stages.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now on Nintendo Switch.
