Have you ever wanted to make a rock garden in Animal Crossing New Horizons? A place where all rocks exist right next to each other, cozily wrapped inside a hedge or a fence…or a place where you can go directly to get your daily resources from rocks, instead of roaming around your entire island?

Ah, yes, that’s the dream. But the way to complete this dream is nothing short of a nightmare. But if that’s what you want to do, then this rock garden guide is for you. In this guide, you will know how to move rocks and make a rock garden in ACNH.

How to Move Rocks and Build a Rock Garden

Youtuber Mayor Mori has made a fantastic tutorial video about moving rocks and arranging them to make a rock garden.

Moving Rocks in ACNH

To move rocks into your desired rock garden location, you need:

  • 1 Shovel
  • The perfect location
  • Mannequins
  • Strong willpower

Select the Area

First, you need to pick an area where your final rock garden will be located. There are a total of 6 rocks that will spawn on your island, so if you want, you can decide to place all 6 rocks within a fenced area.

A rock garden requires great forward planning, so if you want some sand under your rocks in your rock garden, you must do it before the rocks spawn in there. Make sure to prepare the area as per your wish beforehand.

Now, dig holes in the area where you want the rocks to respawn. You need an area of 9 x 7 tiles, where you can have 6 rocks in two rows (three rocks in each). Whatever pattern you choose, you must keep 8 empty tiles around the slot for the rock, because that’s the space rocks need in order to spawn. If there’s anything obstructing it, the rock will not appear there.

Let the Rock Destruction Begin

Your next goal will be to destroy all the rocks that are available all over your island. Don’t worry, they will respawn, so you won’t lose them forever.

In order to do this, you can take a shovel with you, eat a fruit and smash a rock. Eating the fruit will give you fruit energy which will make you capable of destroying rocks with your shovel.

Add Mannequins

Mayor Mori has cleverly noted the use of ‘mannequins’ to block the spots where rocks can spawn all over the island. The aim is to put obstructions on those spots and ensure that the rocks spawn at your desired location, that is, the rock garden.

Use a Custom Design

To block those spots all over your island, you need to use a custom design that is not already attached to anything else.

Next, select ‘Display Here’ and then select ‘Mannequin’.

Soon, the nightmare part of this mission will begin. What you need to do with these mannequins is place them wherever rocks might spawn, all over your island.

The places where rocks cannot spawn are –

  • A stone path
  • A wooden path
  • Right next to a tree and a building
  • On a cliff edge, river edge and the beach

So go ahead, and begin placing your mannequins. A rock needs 8 free tiles around it to spawn, so make sure to block such areas where rocks might appear. This task is monotonous but it will give you your rock garden in the end. So, hold on for a bit longer.

The Waiting Game

Now, only one rock spawns in a day, so wait until all your rocks appear in your designated area. If they don’t, you have most likely missed a spot on your island where it has spawned instead.

And that’s how you can create your very own rock garden by moving rocks in Animal Crossing New Horizons. To clean up the large amount of mannequins on your island, Mayor Mori gives a wonderful tip. Just go to your custom design and select ‘Change Design’. Change it to anything else and save it. Poof, this will make all your mannequins disappear in a flash. This tip saves a lot of time since the task of picking all those mannequins back is enough to give anyone another nightmare.

But all is well because after this whole mission, your rock garden will be ready for viewing. Hitting rocks and collecting resources also gets much faster this way.

For more such helpful guides, tips and tricks, check out our Animal Crossing New Horizons Wiki.