How to Break Rocks and Make a Rock Garden

Break and move rocks to create your own Rock Garden in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH). Learn how to break and move rocks by eating fruit, what items you can find by breaking rocks, as well as how to control where the rock will respawn with our guide below!

How to Break Rocks

What You Need
Axe or Shovel Fruit
Steps
1	Get an Axe or Shovel.
2	Eat Fruit to Gain Stamina.
3	Hit and Break the Rock!

1. Get an Axe or Shovel

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The first thing you'll need is an Axe or Shovel. Any kind will do, so craft a Flimsy Axe or Flimsy Shovel if you haven't made one yet.

Eat Fruit to Gain Stamina

Eat fruit to gain Stamina which will allow you to break rocks using a Shovel or an Axe. The Stamina meter can be found on the top left corner of the screen after eating a fruit.

What Happens When You Eat Fruit?

Break the Rock

With at least one stamina point, press A while standing next to it with a Shovel or Axe equipped to break a rock. Just make sure it's not a Money Rock, so you don't lose any bells in the process!

What You Can Find Inside

These items have been confirmed to be found inside Rocks. However, when searching for items like Iron Nuggets, it's better to hit rocks without breaking them to obtain more items, as breaking a rock will limit you to only one item.

How to Move Rocks

To move the placement of your rocks, you first need to destroy them. You can control where they respawn by covering your island with items or fences.

Take note that this process is long and may take from hours to days to finish. You can also time-travel to make the rocks appear faster and speed up the process.

Rocks Respawn in a Random Spot the Next Day

Rocks respawn the next day, and a maximum of 6 Rocks can exist on your island at a time. When breaking several Rocks at a time, they will reappear one by one each day.

Rocks Only Appear On Land

Rocks can't appear next to buildings, cliffs, water, and infrastructures. Rocks also do not spawn on the beach. If you have the Island Designer app, rocks will not appear on top of or next to hard paths such as stone and wood.

How to Create Paths

Why Should You Break Rocks?

Although breaking rocks isn't really necessary, if you plan to overhaul your island to fit a certain theme, knowing how to break and move rocks is extremely beneficial to helping you achieve your desired aesthetic!

How to Make a Rock Garden

1. Pick a Location

Select a location on your island where you want your Rock Garden to be placed. A 7x5 or 9x7 grid area would be our recommendation as the Rock Garden would contain 6 Rocks in total. Feel free to decorate the Rock Garden to your heart's desire!

2. Destroy All Rocks

The next step will have you breaking all the rocks on your island, you can just follow the steps mentioned in the section How to Break Rocks!

3. Clear Out Rock Spawn Locations

Clear out all the other rock spawn locations to ensure they only appear at the location you chose. Rocks won't spawn on locations such as:

• The Beach
• The Edge of a River
• The Edge of a Cliff (both top and bottom
• Next to a Tree
• Next to a Building
• On a Hard Path via the Island Designer App (stone, wood, etc.)

There are currently 2 methods for effectively clearing out Rock Spawn locations that we highly recommend and listed out below for you to check out!

Custom Designs

Place down custom designs using the Island Designer App to prevent rocks from spawning. Remember to edit and clean up once you're Rock Garden is complete with all the rocks!

Drop Items

Droping solid objects on the ground every fourth tile also works, since rocks can't spawn next to physical objects or items. However, you'll have spend a few days navigating through a weird maze of your own creation!

Enjoy Your Rock Garden!

After completing the steps above all you have to do is wait for the Rocks to spawn at the location you've prepared for the Rock Garden!

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