How will you spend your spring of 2017? How about enjoying the beautiful Flower & Garden Festival at EPCOT? You’ll have more time than ever as it runs for a longest length ever – 90 days – from March 1 – May 29, 2017. That’s plenty of time to enjoy your favorite topiary, catch some world class entertainment, and enjoy the popular food and drink offerings around the World Showcase.
The new length of the festival is not the only change coming Flower and Garden. Check out these fresh surprises and new treats:
- Fresh, farm-market food and beverage flavors will debut at two new Outdoor Kitchens that will join 13 returning Outdoor Kitchens. Guest can sip and savor their way around Epcot, enjoying chef-inspired noshes and refreshing libations with or without a kick.
- The new generation of princess topiary (Snow White, Anna and Elsa – the first to be designed and created with topiary facial features) will welcome a brand-new Belle topiary as fans remember her from the Oscar-winning Disney film, “Beauty and the Beast.” Located outside the France pavilion with the Beast topiary, Belle will come to life with sculpted facial features and her yellow ball gown created with golden blooming Joseph’s Coat plants.
- Another festival first will be a 6-foot-tall topiary of Figment, the feisty dragon mascot of the park’s Imagination! pavilion, perched atop a 5-foot-diameter ball fashioned from yellow Joseph’s Coat.
- The brand-new Epcot front-entrance topiary garden inspired by a vintage Walt Disney short film will spring to life with a floral-festooned maypole featuring Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Daisy and Pluto.
- The popular Garden Rocks concert series will expand to four days each week, with three concerts each Friday through Monday presenting pop musicians that span multiple genres over four decades.
- New Garden Rocks Dining Packages will be available on select days at a number of Epcot restaurants.
- Reimagined interactive play gardens will include a new take on the “Cars”-themed garden introducing a new character topiary from the June 2017 release of the Disney•Pixar sequel, “Cars 3.” Music Garden Melodies play area will return with new garden and topiary elements.
- For the first time, the event’s Festival Center will extend operating hours from Wednesday, March 1 through Sunday, March 5. Throughout the rest of the festival, the center will be open each Friday through Sunday with an entertaining mix of gardening seminars and DIY workshops.
Here’s a look back at some of the elements of the 2016 EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival:
The 2017 festival forecast will be sunny with colorful floral bursts by day and a nighttime landscape aglow with twinkling lights:
- Topiary of Donald Duck and nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie will share Future World space in front of Spaceship Earth with Chip and Dale for a “Fresh Epcot” selfie and family photo opportunity.
- Anna and Elsa topiary will return to the Norway pavilion festival landscape in celebration of the park’s new Frozen Ever After Nearly 100 festival topiary in all will include up to 70 character creations such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Lady and the Tramp, Simba, Timon and Tinker Bell.
- Guests will encounter garden surprises and special appearances related to Earth Day and other spring activities.
- The Butterflies on the Go garden will return with the story of the Monarch’s epic journey across the continent and featuring butterflies emerging from their chrysalises.
- On the way to the new Soarin’ Around the World film at the Soarin’ attraction in The Land pavilion, guests can discover gardens featuring edible flowers, plants that benefit health and healing, and a pollinator paradise.
One of the popular Outdoor Kitchen gardens, Urban Farm Eats, will return with savory bites, sweet treats and ideas for planting produce that can inspire growing numbers of guests who want to learn to grow their own edibles.
“A lot of people, including young children, are serious foodies now, and they have lots of questions about gardening,” says Eric Darden, festival horticulture manager. “We’re getting more and more people in their 20s and 30s asking, ‘How can I grow this?’ I think we’ll be creating more gardeners because people can see what’s possible.”
The festival will include at least 70,000 bedding plants surrounding Future World east and west alone. Plus there will be 220 mini-gardens afloat in the water. What sounds like the “can’t miss” elements of this year’s event?
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