Disney World - The Online Guide

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2003
(UK customers)

Topiaries at WDW

Three whimsical elephants fashioned from creeping fig preside over the popular Dumbo the Flying Elephant attraction. A Podocarpus sea serpent guards the moat around Cinderella Castle. A herd of other chlorophyll animals grazes in fields of annuals at the Walt Disney World Transportation and Ticket Center, and dancing hippo statues of yaupon holly greet visitors headed for the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort.

Disney artists, having given life to hundreds of zany characters on the screen, have added a twist to the age-old practice of topiary gardening. But instead of stylized hedges or geometrically shaped plants, the greenery around the Vacation Kingdom resembles marching elephants, dancing ostriches and a whole menagerie of landscaped Disney characters.

TOPIARY SHOWCASE: Today, more than 200 topiary figures are on show throughout the Walt Disney World Resort. Pete’s dragon, Elliott, is the resort’s largest shrub character at more than 10 feet tall and 14 feet long from head to tail.

SEASONAL TOPIARY: Each spring, when visitors flock to the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, new topiary twists greet them throughout the park. In recent years, topiary characters have been brought to life through technology that allows them to twist, twirl, wave and even blow bubbles at guests.

PLANTING THE SEED: The idea of incorporating topiary figures into Disney parks and resorts began with Walt Disney himself, who always had an eye for “show.” Disney felt he could enlarge upon the topiary gardening techniques he had seen in Europe, so he combined the talents of his film animators with those of the Disneyland landscaping department. The result first appeared in Disneyland’s Fantasyland area in 1963. The figures later were moved to their permanent location in the forecourt of Disneyland’s It’s A Small World attraction in 1966.

At the Walt Disney World Resort, the process began three years before the resort’s 1971 opening and is still evolving at the Walt Disney World Nursery.

IN THE NURSERY: A menagerie of leafy camels, dancing elephants, trained seals and giraffes, as well as Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck, fill giant redwood boxes at the nursery and await removal to appropriate locations in the Vacation Kingdom. Fully grown, this zoo represents three to 10 years of constant care by gardeners who clip and manicure plants into shapes.

SHAPING EACH FIGURE: The shapes are dreamed up by Disney artists with a flair for animation. Their drawings become blueprints for the wire framework which provide a skeletal base. With the greenery confined to individual planters, gardeners prune the plant material to the frame during the extensive training period. Once the figure has matured, gardeners prune three inches from the frame every two to four weeks. During the growing season, the figures are clipped every week.

Due to the plants’ unusual shapes, gardeners often have to adapt to a variety of situations. A camel with four feet on the ground requires four individual shrubs, the longest and most appropriately shaped one becoming the neck and head. Just one shrub is used for a hippopotamus poised on one toe, since all appendages must come from a single plant.

ARTFUL ATTRACTIONS: Careful pruning of topiary materials has produced: a trained arborvitae seal tossing a pink azalea ball; a dexterous Ilex vomitoria elephant balancing on a striped beach ball of alternanthera; and green Ligustrum polar bear babies with a variegated Ligustrum ‘Silver Star’ mama.

For quick-growing figures, the horticulture crew uses an entirely different technique, filling the wire frames with sphagnum moss and planting them with close-growing vine material, primarily creeping fig (Ficus pumila) and English ivy. Even wax-leaf begonia flowers have been used.

The topiary figures at Walt Disney World Resort have become an attraction in themselves and provide a perfect addition to the gardens of the Vacation Kingdom, where cartoon characters come to life with the flick of an artist’s brush and a gardener’s shears.

PLANTS USED FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD TOPIARY:

Shrub Topiary
Ilex vomitoria - Yaupon Holly
Juniperus sylvestris - Sylvester Juniper
Ligustrum japonicum - Japanese Privet
Podocarpus macrophyllus - Japanese Yew
Pyracantha sp. - Firethorn

Sphagnum Topiary
Alternanthera ficoidea - Alternanthera
Begonia semperflorens cvs. - Wax Begonia
Ficus pumila - Creeping Fig
Hedera helix - English Ivy

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