EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival

Howdy!

My time here in Orlando is quickly coming to an end. I can honestly say it flew by! One of my very favorite things I have done during my time off of work has been visiting the EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival. The festival is held yearly each Spring to display seasonal foods, over 100 topiaries, and seasonal flowers. When I first heard about this festival I knew right away it was something I had to see. The Festival this year runs from March 5th- May 18th, so I have been multiple times. Here are some of my favorite parts of the festival:

Outdoor kitchens are located throughout the park. Served in these kitchens are foods featuring specific plants and fruits such as pineapple, sweet potato, strawberries, eggplant, and oranges. Outside each outdoor kitchen is a tiny garden that has these items growing. Heres an example of Pineapple Promenade where you could purchase Dole Whip and see what was grown to make it:

Topiaries are displayed all over the park of different Disney characters and friends. There are around 20 in total.

Tinker Bell's Butterfly House was probably my favorite area. You enter a green house like area filled with different varieties of flowers and plants. That is not the impressive part though, tons, hundreds, of butterflies are flying all around you. You can watch them fly around, land on flowers, and sometimes even land on you. It is a beautiful sight, but is very hard to catch on camera.

It was not all just for looks, I learned something new that I found very interesting called Aquaponics. Aquaponics is the combination of fish and hydroponic vegetable crops in a recirculating system. The fish and the plants work together to improve the living of each other. The plants act as a filter to improve the water quality for the fish, and the fish provide nutrients that the plants need to survive and grow.This helpful system has many benefits  including saving money on filtration systems and fertilizer. It has also helped the creation of more organic and natural products. Below is a sample of an aquaponics system that they had set up.

Finally, here are some of the garden areas that were scattered throughout and some feature displays.

I can only imagine how many hands and hours it took to complete all of the topiaries and gardens. It is truly a beautiful sight. The colors are so rich, and the designs are intricately planned. It is definitely a project that I would be interested in working on sometime in the future. Hopefully I will be able to at least visit it in the future and see how much it has grown.

Have a magical day!

Alexa