It seems that each year the Epcot Flower And Garden Festival gets bigger and better. And 2012 is going to be no exception. For the third year in a row the Festival will be sponsored by HGTV, and there will be plenty of HGTV show and celebrity tie-ins. John Frost at the Disney Blog web site has written a summary of some of the plans (Source).
Flower and Garden Highlights
The Festival runs from March 7 to May 20.
Disney is paying tribute to the timeless classic move Fantasia with one of the largest topiaries to ever grace the entrance to Epcot. Sorcerer Mickey will be eight feet tall and will stand atop a twelve foot tall mountain of flowers. Mickey will be joined by many other characters from the movie, including enchanted broom sticks and also dancing elephants and alligators. Disney gardeners will bring together more than 15 different types of plants and more than 22,000 plants to create this dazzling display.
The Flower Power concern returns to the American Garden Theater with acts like talent from Three Dog Night, Jose Feliciano, and Electric Light Orchestra.
More than four hundred gardeners work in the year leading up to the Festival to prepare thirty million flowers for the event. And many of the plants are replaced mid way through the Festival to remove plants better suited for the cooler Florida weather of March and replace them with plants that enjoy the warmer weather in April and May.
The old Wonder Of Life pavilion will be put back into service again this year as the Festival Center where guests can purchase merchandise and attend lectures from gardening experts. Throughout Epcot there are more than 150 different demonstrations scheduled throughout the Festival.
Bambi’s Butterfly House will be open again this year where guests can check out beautiful butterflies in a walk through exhibit. More than ten different types of butterflies will be present in over a thousand of these flying beauties.