19 fun facts about the 25th Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival

Walking around the 25th Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival you can see all of the beautiful flowers, plantings and topiaries, but it isn’t until you start looking at the numbers you realize what it takes to fill this 300-acre theme park.

The festival runs from  Feb. 28 to May 28, 2018. So, let’s take a look a closer look at the numbers. Here are 19 fun facts about the flower and garden festival:

1. 30 million blooms blanket the park throughout the festival.

2. During the 90 days of the festival, there are two complete crop rotations to keep the floral displays fresh.

3. The festival’s front-entrance welcome garden with Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto and Goofy features more than 30 varieties of flowers, plants, and other garden materials used to create the scene

4. The new Imagination Play Garden with its musical maze, net play climber and natural landscape is one of the largest festival gardens created at nearly one-third acre.

5. The Anna and Elsa topiaries stand 6.5 feet tall and are created with plants that include variegated Ficus, green Ficus and the succulent Sedum Coral Reef.

6. Snow White, Belle, Anna and Elsa are all considered next-generation topiary stars. They replaced earlier “leading-lady” topiaries which had undefined facial features.

7. At least 25 different plants, grasses and mosses of various colors, including pink and red begonias, dusty miller, palm fiber, palm seeds, ficus and lichen, are used to create and define facial and other features of festival character topiaries.

8. About 200 one-pound boxes of hairpins are used to attach plants and flowers to the topiaries.

9.  More than 500,000 plants, trees and shrubs are planted for the festival; 250,000 of those are annual blossoms installed for the festival.

10. Festival plants include 60 different species of trees, 25 types of palms, and 48 varieties of bedding plants.

11. 1,000 native butterflies represent up to 10 species at the  Goodness Garden Butterfly House.

12. Among the butterfly garden’s 24 nectar plants are passion flower, lantana, butterfly bush, blue porterweed, scarlet milkweed and canna lily.

13. More than 20 8-to-9-foot tall, multi-hued “flower towers” dot the festival landscape.

14. More than 140 floating mini-gardens, each three feet in diameter, of multi-hued New Guinea impatiens provide splashes of color on two ponds that border the walkway between Future World and World Showcase and in the Canada pavilion pond.

15. Nearly 800 container gardens of flowers, herbs, plants and vegetables in clay pots, barrels and urns enhance the landscape throughout Epcot.

16. About 400 Walt Disney World horticulturists are needed to install the festival landscape, topiaries and many exhibits.

17. About 100 Epcot horticulturists maintain topiaries and other festival displays.

18. It takes more than one full year and about 24,000 cast member hours to prepare for the annual festival

19. Each of the 15 Outdoor (food) Kitchens features a garden planted with select produce and herbs to represent more than 70 overall beverage choices and more than 40 featured food items.