In many ways, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a game all about patience. Because it’s tied to the passage of real time, you’ll find yourself often waiting to see your upgrades come to fruition.
Whether it’s an update to your home, a renovation to a business, moving buildings around, or growing plants, you have to wait days before you can fully appreciate the end result. This waiting is both a blessing and a curse – especially when it comes to growing trees.
If you’re cultivating an orchard or a forest, it might be days before you notice that one (or perhaps even more) of your trees isn’t growing. So, why are some trees not growing in ACNH? I’ll address some of your tree woes here so you can avoid the frustration.
How to Grow Trees
I’ll start with a basic introduction to the concept of growing trees, and why you’d even want to. I’ll also take a look at the types of trees you can grow. Since I’m not sure whether I’ll be writing another post about trees in ACNH, this will kind of have to serve as a comprehensive tree guide.
There are several different unique kinds of trees you can grow in the game, but they can be divided into two broader categories: fruit and non-fruit trees. Most people try to get all the fruit trees in the game on their island, because fruit that wasn’t native to your island sells for more.
Another reason to grow trees is that they’re simply attractive. Cultivating a private forest or artfully planting trees all over your island makes it more appealing.
I’ve never been one to care about your island rating, but I believe having a certain number of trees also contributes to the number of stars your island receives. You don’t want your island to be a barren wasteland, after all.
Anyway, you can buy non-fruit tree saplings from Nook’s Cranny. If you’re looking for specific fruit trees, you can either take the fruits of those trees and plant them or move the entire tree by eating a fruit and then using a shovel on the desired tree to put it in your inventory.
Trees need an adequate amount of space around them, which I’ll get into shortly. Other than that, all you really need to do is wait a few days after you’ve planted them.
Read Next: ACNH vs Stardew Valley – A Detailed Comparison
Here’s Why Some of Your Trees Aren’t Growing
So, let’s say you’ve noticed that one of your trees isn’t growing. It’s been days since you planted it, and it’s not getting larger than a tiny, disappointing sapling.
The good news is that there’s only one reason why some of your trees aren’t growing, which means it’s an easy fix. Your trees just need a little room.
Each tree needs at least one tile all around them in order to grow. It isn’t just other trees you need to space them away from, though – you also need to make sure you haven’t planted them too close to a cliff, river, or the ocean.
Basically, just make sure your tree is planted on a large surface area away from edges, buildings, and other plants. I personally try to make sure there are a few empty tiles on each side, just to be safe – especially when I’m planting an orchard.
Tree FAQs
Let’s answer some commonly asked questions about tree growth in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Here are at least two questions I found:
Is there a tree limit in ACNH?
What if you want to cultivate an island with a carefully manicured natural or forest aesthetic? You’ll probably want to load it up with trees to achieve that effect, which may leave you wondering if there’s a limit to the number of trees you can grow.
The answer is yes, there is a numerical limit to the trees you can have on your island. To be specific, the limit is 220. This includes all types of tree, whether fruit-bearing or non-fruit bearing. Interestingly, this figure also includes bamboo.
How do you make trees grow faster?
It takes an annoyingly long time to grow a tree to maturation in ACNH. Unlike with many other games, ACNH is tied to the passage of real time, so you can’t really fast forward the growth of a tree.
Unfortunately, there is no way to speed up tree growth, as far as I know. This is just something we have to deal with whenever we plant a new tree.
Wrap Up
Animal Crossing: New Horizons isn’t a very complicated game, but that’s the beauty of it. When problems arise, such as trees failing to grow, the causes and solutions are usually simple.
Because of this simplicity, it’s much easier to relax and forget your worries while you’re playing the game. It’s not a frustrating experience, and it wasn’t designed to be.
Do you have any orchards growing on your island? Let me know what you’ve done with your trees in the comments below.