Disney Weekly Scoop

Epcot Flower & Garden Festival: It’s all about the princesses

The annual Disney World event is a royal affair.

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Belle from ‘Beauty & the Beast’ is one of the topiaries for Epcot’s annual Flower & Garden Festival at Disney World. Giant topiaries don’t grow on trees — not even at Walt Disney World.

That sure would make things simpler than the current system, a months-long process that involves metal frames, specialized irrigation, meticulous trimming, thousands of hair pins and mounds of moss.

The Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, which begins March 18, will gather more than 50 of the statues of greenery. They’re so plentiful, Disney established an official scavenger hunt for them.

Front and center of the festival will be the “Cinderellabration” area, featuring topiaries of Cinderella, Prince Charming, Belle, Beast, Snow White, seven dwarfs and, making their debut, Sleeping Beauty and Prince Phillip. They’ll be standing where the giant, surfing Goofy did last year. 

To create that look, the outline of each topiary the topiaries is formed by a metal frame. The finished product is not solid foliage straight through: A space of 3 to 5 inches is stuffed with moss and supported by an internal cage. Being hollow helps keep down the poundage.

Plant life is then pinned to the moss.

Disney topiaries have progressed past their all-green predecessors. Now all manner of natural materials is used, especially to convey facial expressions of characters. It makes them look alive.

A trip to the Tournament of Roses Parade in California inspired Disney officials.

Blooms of note

The mist-breathing Bromeliad Dragon returns to lily pads outside China’s Temple of Heaven after a three-year absence.

The 44 towers of flowers, previously sprinkled across Epcot, will be lined up near Spaceship Earth.

Expect more — and larger — floating gardens in the East and West lakes.

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