Flower planting

Flowers being planted behind the player.

Flower planting is a game mechanic in Pikmin Bloom. When it is turned on, small flowers will be planted in a trail behind the player, and will appear on the map screen as the player walks around the real world. Planting flowers consumes petals of the type that is being planted. Planted flowers on the map are visible to all players.

Planted flowers are used to bloom Big Flowers. While within a Big Flower's radius, players can plant flowers in the circle to encourage growth and allow the Big Flower to bloom.

Having flower planting on also grows seedlings faster. If a player is planting flowers, seedlings will reach maturity faster with an automatic step-count bonus. Initially it starts with a 10% bonus and eventually reaches a maximum of 30% as the player's flowers are continually planted.

For every 250 flowers planted, one coin is earned, up to 60 coins a day. Progress is reset when planting ends.

Flowers last for 7 days and then vanish, though they can vanish a few days earlier if approached by the player while planting more. Flowers within the radius of a Big Flower instead last until the Big Flower wilts.

Changing the selected petal type during planting will change to planting that flower type without interrupting the session, though doing so will immediately spend a petal and start the spending timer from there, so it will always be slightly less efficient. Running out of selected petals while the device is asleep will cause it to rumble; by the time this happens, it is already too late to salvage the session before it ends.

Mechanics

For the purposes of flower planting, the world is divided into a grid of cells that are around 5 by 5 meters. These cells are determined by a grid of larger cells sized at 0.00036 decimal degrees across both dimensions. These larger cells are then divided into a number of smaller cells, depending on their respective latitiude. At the equator, as well as for the majority of the populated ranges of the earth, the division is into 64 smaller cells, each with edges sized at 0.000045 decimal degrees. The cells are not shown to the player, but are used to calculate many features of flower planting.

One flower can be planted in each cell, and once a flower is in a cell, another one cannot take its place until 5 minutes have passed. As a player walks with flower planting turned on, they will plant flowers in nearby grid cells. This will only happen if the player is moving less than 16-20 kilometers per hour (10-13 miles per hour), to prevent players from being able to plant lots of flowers from within a vehicle. This maximum speed seems to vary between players/locations.

Not all flowers are rendered on the map screen. When flowers are directly adjacent to eachother, only some will be shown, and the density shown depends on how far in front of the camera they are, as well as the performance of the device being used to play the game. Flowers are also not rendered when they are on top of roads. However, all flowers, including non-rendered ones, are counted in the banner at the top of the screen that says how many flowers have been planted in a session.

During flower planting, flowers are set down around the player in a rectangular area, which is longer along the north-south axis. The size of the player's squad controls the size of this planting area. For every 10 Pikmin added to the squad, the rectangle will increase by one cell along both dimensions. The rate at which petals are consumed will also increase, though this does not outweigh the benefits of increasing the planting area.

Pikmin in squad	Minimum level	Planting area		Petal use interval (seconds)	Petals used per minute
1-9	1	2x1 (2)		30	2
10-19	?	3x2 (6)		20	3
20-29	10	4x3 (12)		15	4
30-39	15	5x4 (20)		12	5
40	55	6x5 (30)		10	6

Squad Size Level Requirements before August 14th, 2023
Pikmin in squad 1-9 10-19 20-29 30-39 40 Minimum level 1 10 20 40 60

A diagram depicting the flower grid situated around a Big Flower. Pink panels represent area that contributes to the Big Flower's count when planted in. This shape is uniform for all Big Flowers.

With Others

The following article or section is in need of assistance from someone who plays Pikmin Bloom. Particularly: From what distance can players see one another?

The flower planting menu contains a setting that toggles the "With Others" mode. When a player is planting flowers in this mode, other players will be able to see that player's Mii and their squad walking around and planting flowers. This mode does not display player usernames, and is disabled for child accounts.

Privacy zones

A placed privacy zone.

To do: Note whether privacy zones limit the effect of planting With Others. Care to do so?

Privacy zones allow a player to designate circular areas within which their own flowers will temporarily cease to be planted during planting, and as a result, coins will not be earned nor will flowers be counted toward event challenges. However, other planting effects will otherwise continue as normal, consuming petals at a rate proportional to squad size, and maintaining the seedling growth rate bonus. Zones do not affect other players or their planting, nor are they visible to other players.

To place a privacy zone, a player must open the settings menu, followed by the "Privacy" and "Flower Planting" submenus, and then select "Create Privacy Zone". A zone's radius of effect can range between 50 to 300 metres. Zones will be named after their district location by default, but this can be changed by the player. A player may add as many as 5 concurrent privacy zones, which can be deleted or have their locations, sizes and names edited at any time.

Flower planting accelerator

A flower planting accelerator.

The flower planting accelerator is an item unlocked at level 12 (previously level 10 until August 14^th, 2023) that doubles both petal usage and flower output for 15 minutes during flower planting. It is a consumable item that can be bought from the shop or obtained in rare circumstances. One can be used by pressing the "Accelerate" button while flower planting and confirming this in the pop-up box. If another accelerator is used before the current one expires, the period is extended.

The doubling effect is done by planting 2 flowers in each cell instead of 1, not by increasing the planting radius. The cooldown period before the same player can plant into the same cell again remains the same. Big Flower flower counts are also affected by the doubled output.

Strategy

The following article or section contains guides. The strategies shown are just suggestions.

The most efficient way to plant flowers is to be moving consistently at under the maximum allowed speed of 16-20km/h (10-13mph). Moving east-west is more efficient than moving north-south.

If you are stationary, a strategy of planting for a few seconds every 5 minutes is most effective. This limits wasting petals.

When sending your Pikmin on expeditions, be careful about sending Pikmin from your squad, since if your squad size is reduced below a threshold, your flower planting rate could drop significantly. Sending standby Pikmin avoids this.

Badges

There are 5 badges the player can gain from flower planting:

• Apprentice Flower Badge: Plant 1,000 flowers.
• Novice Flower Badge: Plant 20,000 flowers.
• Enthusiast Flower Badge: Plant 500,000 flowers.
• Expert Flower Badge: Plant 1,600,000 flowers.
• Master Flower Badge: Plant 3,000,000 flowers.

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  Apprentice Flower Badge. The badge shows a petal jar.

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  Novice Flower Badge. The badge shows a Big Flower.

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  Enthusiast Flower Badge. The badge shows several small flowers.

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  Expert Flower Badge. The badge shows 3 Pikmin and several small flowers.

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  Master Flower Badge. The badge shows a Big Flower, 3 Pikmin, and several small flowers.

Gallery

Screenshots

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  Selecting which type of petals to plant.

Flower types

To do: Replace the pansy and rose textures with higher quality versions. Care to do so?

On the map, planted flowers are shown as 2D sprites that turn around to face the camera. The sprite depends on the type of flower.

	White	Yellow	Red	Blue
Basic
Pansy
Rose
Poinsettia		N/A		N/A
Camellia		N/A		N/A
Plum blossom				N/A
Cherry blossom		N/A	N/A	N/A
Tulip
Carnation
Hydrangea		N/A
Lily				N/A
Sunflower	N/A		N/A	N/A
Spider Lily				N/A
Cosmos				N/A
Cyclamen		N/A
Daffodil			N/A	N/A
Windflower
Baby Blue Eyes	N/A	N/A	N/A
Calla Lily
Frangipani				N/A
Hibiscus				N/A
Dianthus		N/A
Gentian		N/A
Chrysanthemum
Helleborus
Cattleya
Hyacinth
Sweet Pea
Lily of the Valley		N/A		N/A

History

The following changes have been made to flower planting over time:

Update or date	Changes
February 18th, 2022	Added privacy zones, allowing areas to be designated within which the player will not plant flowers, obscuring their trail.
June 8th, 2022	Doubled the rate of petal consumption while flower planting. Changed the planted flowers required per coin from 500 to 250.
February 9th, 2023	Added the flower planting accelerator, which doubles flowers planted for 15 minutes after use.

Trivia

• Flowers cannot be planted in military areas.
• There are currently no flowers that exclusively come in only the red color
  • However, there have been flowers in the past that only came in red, but have had other colors added since

See also

• Fruit (Pikmin Bloom)
• Vegetation