DisneyBizJournal.com: Dozens of Topiaries to Explore at 2024 EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival

by Beth Keating

Park Review

DisneyBizJournal.com

March 5, 2024

Each year, Disney horticulturists spend months cultivating and designing dozens of lush topiaries for the annual EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival. These whimsical living sculptures are tributes to your favorite Disney characters, and this year, there are more than three dozen green friends to visit, depending on how you count them. (Do Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs count as one topiary, or eight, even if they are posed together?)

It’s a bit of a scavenger hunt, because while the topiaries are listed in the Flower & Garden passport, some of them require a little searching to locate their poses. There are a few new characters to greet this year, including Asha, Star and Valentino from Wish; Guardians of the Galaxy’s Groot, doing his best to dismantle a cassette tape; and Miguel and Dante from Coco.

There are also more than two dozen Global Gardens weaving their way throughout the park, assuring that everywhere you look you’ll see a spot brimming with the colors of spring. It’s also a call back to the original mission of EPCOT, because these Global Gardens offer up a side of education with their beauty. Be sure to visit the English Tea Garden in the United Kingdom Pavilion (you can get a free guided tour of the teas and tea-making process there twice a day.)

The Shakespeare Garden also makes its home in the United Kingdom Pavilion, where you can explore not only some of the plants mentioned in The Bard’s plays, but find the hidden meanings behind the words. On your way out of the UK, keep your eyes open for the Tinker Bell topiary. Not only is she too cute for words, but she is surrounded by a bevy of tiny fairy houses. (I was eavesdropping on a mom who was making up stories about the fairies that lived in each house for her young daughters while I was taking pictures of the mini-abodes… so fun!)

Our favorite garden is an enclosed one – Butterfly Landing is inside a tent near The Land Pavilion, and home to a fascinating number of free flying winged creatures. You’ll learn a lot here, in addition to being awed by their delicate beauty. You can find out how to create a butterfly garden of your own, follow the life cycle of the butterflies (there are a few nesting boxes to see the chrysalis preparing to hatch the new generations), and even explore the kinds of plants needed to support the butterflies’ life cycle.

Other pavilions offer some interesting garden explorations as well. The Spice Garden in the Morocco Pavilion will appeal to all the budding chefs strolling the park. Gardeners will be especially intrigued by the bonsai collection in the Japan Pavilion, and kiddos will be amused by the new PB&J Garden (presented by Smucker’s Uncrustables), located on the World Showcase Bridge, because in addition to a little fact-finding about where their peanut butter and jelly sandwich comes from, they’ll be treated to a few puns and jokes.

If, after all the snacking at the various food kitchens, your offspring need to run off some energy, there’s even a garden just for them. The Camp Get Out ‘N’ Play Garden (Presented by OFF!) is located near the side door of the Creations shop (closer to the Odyssey building side). This camp-themed garden has lots of space to jump and climb, surrounded by gorgeous floral displays, including a flower-filled canoe. There’s also a Spike the Bee hiding in the area if you are participating in the Spike’s Pollen-Nation Exploration scavenger hunt.

In the meantime, enjoy a few of the faces of this year’s Flower & Garden topiary collection. While it is not an exhaustive collection of the dozens of botanical creations you’ll find at the festival, maybe it will bring a bit of spring to your part of the world!