It’s a big year for the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival. It runs March 6-May 19 and is celebrating it’s 20th year with a whole host of exciting new exhibits at the event. Add to that new food, new music, and new botanical delights and you have another can’t miss year.
First, let’s look at some of what’s new:
Epcot chefs will cook up first-time festival food and beverage fun, with special cooking stations offering exclusive-to-the-festival bites along the park’s World Showcase promenade. (This is so over due!)
A new circus-like “Land of Oz Play Area,” based on the Disney fantastical film adventure “Oz: The Great and Powerful” to be released in March 2013, will debut a kaleidoscope of interactive fun.
Disney topiary experts will grow, shape and manicure a Fab Five Disney character topiary with Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, Pluto and Donald Duck (with Daisy Duck in a cameo) featured in a celebratory floral cookout scene in living topiary color at the park’s front entrance.
New illuminated gardens in the park’s Future World and World Showcase will cast a colorful glow over each festival evening.
Throughout the 75-day garden party, guests will discover festival surprises around every corner including new topiary triumphs, colorful garden displays, a butterfly bounty, HGTV celebrity designers, interactive gardening seminars and whimsical children’s play areas. On weekends, top Flower Power rockers of the 1960s and ’70s will perform.
The Flower & Garden festival may be over, but two new Topiary sculptures have been added to EPCOT. Ostensibly to promote the ‘Summer to Remember’ at Walt Disney World, the Phineas and Ferb shaped topiary were conveniently placed close to the check-in for “Agent P’s… Read More »Phineas and Ferb Topiaries Installed at EPCOT
Due to a family vacation, I’ve not yet found my way to this year’s Flower & Garden Festival at EPCOT. But after watching this behind the scenes video of the installation of the Sorcerer Mickey Topiary at the park’s entrance. Looks grand.
The 2012 EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival will begin blooming soon. In just over a month the park will roll out its 19th festival and the third with HGTV as a sponsor. I think it’s been a great partnership and look forward to seeing what the combined forces can bring this year.
One of the highlights promises to be the Sorcerer Mickey topiary that’s part of the largest-ever Disney front-entrance topiary. There will be a stellar cast of HGTV design celebrities and a great line up of artists at the Flower Power concert series.
Here’s a sneak peek of this year’s festival news:
The 19th Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival presented by HGTV runs March 7-May 20.
Disney’s gardening magic goes a long way when an eight-foot-tall floral Sorcerer Mickey topiary holds court in front of the park’s iconic Spaceship Earth. Standing atop a 12-foot-tall floral mountain cliff, Sorcerer Mickey directs a riot of color in the manicured shapes of dancing broomsticks, buckets, mushrooms, hippos, alligators and elephants straight from the classic Disney film, “Fantasia.” The scene pops with pink geraniums, white poppies, violet petunias, blue delphiniums and pansies.
Twice daily each Friday through Sunday of the festival, HGTV designers and hosts share their insights on landscapes and design with Festival Center audiences. John Gidding of “Curb Appeal: The Block” kicks off the series March 9-11 with curb-appeal design tips for homeowners.
Music fills each festival weekend when pop music hitmakers of the 1960s and ’70s rule the America Gardens Theatre stage with performances of their greatest songs. Jose Feliciano ignites the Flower Power concert series March 9-11 with his treasure trove of tunes. Two new festival acts are in store: Chuck Negron formerly of Three Dog Night (April 27-29) and The Orchestra featuring former members of ELO and ELO Part II (May 4-6).
The front-entrance floral spectacle will welcome guests to a festival packed with new gardens and displays, featured speakers and hands-on fun for all ages, including daily gardening workshops with take-home projects for all who participate.
Thirty million blooms, 240 floating mini-gardens on two ponds, 700 container gardens of flowers, herbs, plants and vegetables, dozens of Disney character topiaries, 30 “flower towers” of impatiens and sweeping beds of original floral designs create a new tapestry of brilliant color across the 260-acre Epcot landscape. It takes more than one year and 400 Walt Disney World horticulturists to plan and prepare for the 75-day festival.
Halfway through the festival, Disney gardeners remove the cold-hardy blossoms that thrive in March and early April to plant a new crop of flowers that flourish in spring’s warmer temperatures. And throughout the event, dozens of gardening experts meet guests daily with fresh landscape ideas for 2012. Daily workshops at the Festival Center let guests dig into projects they can take home at the end of the day.
Don’t Miss!
The Festival Center– Guests can shop for festival merchandise, attend demonstrations and get ideas and tips from master gardeners. In Future World between Universe of Energy and Mission:SPACE.
Disney Gardening at Home presentations– Disney horticulturists and local experts like Robert Bowden of Harry P. Leu Gardens will share gardening tips and lead guests in a hands-on, take-home activity. At the Festival Center.
Special Festival Weekend Celebrations– An Art in the Garden celebration of plein air artists is scheduled March 23-25; a Disney’s Animal Kingdom Specialists weekend presents indigenous insects that are part of our world; a Florida Federation of Garden Clubs gathering will be April 27-29; and a Fresh from Florida Farmer’s Market salute is slated for May 4-6.
Bambi’s Butterfly House, three times the size of the festival’s original, is a-flutter with multiple species of brilliant butterflies. At Imagination Walkway by Innoventions West.
Pixie Hollow Fairy Garden–Fabulous Disney fairy topiaries alight to greet young fans who enter this whimsical garden designed with play structures for children ages 2-5. At the Test Track Walkway.
The HGTV Designers Stage presents HGTV celebrities each Friday through Sunday and nationally recognized garden personalities Monday through Thursday. At the Festival Center.
Flower Power concert series welcomes back 20th century pop favorites this year when Chubby Checker and The Wildcats, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Davy Jones and eight other bands rock the America Gardens Theatre with their timeless tunes. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Performers and appearance dates subject to change.
The topiaries that surround the exterior of Disneyland’s classic and much loved attraction “it’s a small world” have been impressing guests since 1966. But what behind the scenes magic is involved in putting on this show? This video with Topiary Engineer Craig Minasian reveals a… Read More »Small World Topiaries receive TLC
Some of the changes coming to this years 18th annual EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival includes an expanded butterfly garden, new topiaries, and HGTV stars. The festival runs March 2-May 15 and will feature over thirty million blooms, half a million plants, and an amazing… Read More »18th Annual Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival Fun Facts
An ocean theme is evident this year. I took a walk around EPCOT today to see how much progress has been made toward the popular Flower & Garden Festival that opens each spring at the theme park. This year marks the 17th festival and it… Read More »EPCOT’s Flower & Garden Festival kicks off this week
With the first weekend of the 2009 International Flower & Garden Festival in the past now’s a great time to look at some of the event’s many highlights.
Four beautiful sets of Topiaries greet guests as the enter EPCOT each day.
Sleeping Beauty has all the gracefulness given to her by Marc Davis’ animation.
