How to remove flowers efficiently in ACNH?

Question

I've let flowers take over half of my island in ACNH, and I would like to clear the large space they take. I don't particularly care if they just disappear or get sold.

What is the most efficient way to do so with the minimum effort?

Answer 1

I had a similar problem. Earlier in the game when it rained almost every day (and I had an islander obsessed with watering everything) flowers took a large portion of my island. Here's how I cleaned it up in a decent amount of time:

1. A lot of shovels
2. Carry a trash can
3. Place the trash can near your group of flowers
4. Dig up all the flowers you can
5. Dump them into the trash can
6. rinse and repeat steps 3 - 5 until you clean up

It still took about half a day to clean everything up.... but it was doable, put on a podcast/movie marathon/netflix/etc. and just go at it.

Something else you can do is employ "best friends", as they are also allowed to dig up things. So gather some friends, and make an event out of it (prizes for most dug, payment of bells/nook mile tickets/other stuff).

One more tip to prevent the flower outbreak. Make a design pattern that is just a full grid of transparency, you can place this to surround the flowers. They won't spread, and it still looks like normal ground. You can also use construction to add various paths... as long as it isn't plain ground flowers won't spread.

Answer 2

With the new Mario Pipe item, hers's how I did it:

1. place one pipe next to the store
2. place the other next to the flowers
3. dig up all the flowers you can, and hop in the pipe
4. you should end up at nook's cranny, unless you have other pipes around your island
5. sell them in the drop-off box
6. repeat steps 3-5

Answer 3

I found that an easy way, assuming you can have two controllers, is to use another player villager from your island (or make one for the occasion).

The idea is to do a coop play, where the main player moves the camera around from time to time, while the "guest" does the work.

It works particularly well because:

• The tool does not break for the guest, so you don't even need to bring spares and change
• The guest does not have access to his inventory, so everything goes to the recycling box in the Resident Services, no need to deal with inventory since it discards the oldest items to make room for new ones anyway.

The downside is that your recycling box might get a bit flooded, if it's something you use in other cases.