I've been having issues with the island rating system.

[DaviddivaD]

Every couple of weeks when I check the island rating, it will drop down four stars and Isabelle will tell me that it's too rural and there are too many trees. I haven't planted any more trees in a couple of months and everytime I get told this I cut down a couple more trees and the rating goes back up. I'm sure in a couple more weeks she'll tell me I have too many trees again. What seems too be the problem here?

Also, she told me this time that there also was too many items laying around on the ground. I had dropped a few acorns and pine cones on the path leading to my campsite just trying to make it look a little more rustic. I dropped no more than six. I have no other dropped items on my island. Not even the sticks that drop daily from the trees. I picked up the acorns and pine cones and sure enough the rating went back up to five stars. Can anyone confirm that all it takes is six dropped items to lower the rating? I also tested this by dropping six items from my storage and sure enough it the rating went back down to four.

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

The maximum amount of trees (bushes don't count, bamboo does) that you can have while also having a 5 star rating is 220 trees. So if you really want that 5 star rating, start counting your trees and remove the excess. I found that placing a basic design on the ground near the tree would prevent me from accidentally counting the same tree twice.

I'm not sure about the acorn/pine cone thing, but I bet someone else will chime in with the answer to that. If not, I would wait til you get a stable 5 star rating and then start experimenting with how many pine cones/acorns you can get away with

 

[Skandranon]

have you removed any flowers from your island? if u have enough flowers they will raise the rating enough for you to keep trees, but if you start cutting back on flowers, then the tree limit will start kicking in