A big green thumbs-up goes to Disney World’s landscape imagineers and design crew for executing the 2022 EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival. The Orlando, Florida theme park is so bright and so green Alice really is in Wonderland here. (Tip: Hang out in World Showcase’s United Kingdom tea garden and Alice will make an appearance).
What You Need To Know
This year’s festival is the longest running ever — a whopping 125 days, ending July 4. That’s quite a feat since spring annual flowers often succumb to Florida’s scorching heat in early May. Still, Disney goes all-in to keep flowers looking fresh and in bloom the entire time. Around 300 acres of EPCOT is devoted to festival gardens, landscapes, exhibits, and fun experiences, according to Disney.
A free pocket-size festival guide (see the slideshow below) is available at EPCOT’s entrances and select kiosks around the park. It’s an easy read and gives you a layout where all the sights are located. The festival is included in the regular park admission. There are no additional charges.
Green Giants
The topiaries are the stars of the festival. Some are towering in size and scale and can weigh several thousand pounds each. Bigger than life! There’s a dueling Captain Hook and Peter Pan, with Tick Tock Croc just a few feet away. Close to 100 topiaries, mostly iconic Disney characters, are all around the park. It takes months to prepare and decorate the topiaries, which typically are made of welded metal frames covered with chicken wire and sphagnum peat moss. Drip line irrigators are weaved into the frames before they’re filled in with green creeping plant plugs such as jasmine and fig. Plants of color are then mixed in. Water-based paint is either brushed or sprayed on for fine detail and definition of character faces.
Country Gardens
Exploring World Showcase is a great way to see gardening displays from different countries. For example, my favorite is the United Kingdom, with its finely manicured Shakespeare garden. Then just around a corner, there are the flowing flower beds in the UK’s tea garden. You’ll also find a Winnie the Pooh topiary, and Tigger, too!
Kids Play
New in 2022 is the Bambi Butterfly Garden. This outdoor screen-covered exhibit is full of butterflies. Some will even land on your head. It’s a great way for kids to learn about the environment and how butterflies benefit our world. The festival’s Play Full Garden integrates a playground with flower and vegetable gardens. Kids are literally surrounded by greenery as they’re having fun on the play gym.
Let’s Eat
What would any festival at EPCOT be without food? There’s plenty of it, too. Just like the International Food and Wine Festival, you can eat and drink your way around World Showcase. Food portions are sample size and each menu item is priced separately. For the flower and garden event, some specialty food booths are open. I liked the Flavor Full Kitchen booth, especially the sweet roasted corn-on-the-cob with garlic spread. Simply delicious! There’s also The Honey Bee-stro and The Citrus Blossom, with food and drinks made with natural honey and citrus.
Garden Party
At night the outdoor Garden Rocks Concert series ramps up with three performances beginning at 5:30pm. The series features a mix of oldies and current musical acts, including emerging talent from the Orlando area.
Things I’d Like To See
The annual International Flower and Garden Festival is now 29-years-old. I remember going to the first festival. Back then I recall there were more exhibits and demonstrations throughout the day specifically for the average home gardener. I’d like to see this again, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic caused a boom in home gardening. According to research by the National Gardening Association, 18.3 million – seven percent of the U.S. population – gardened for the first time in 2020. The demand was so great, some seed companies sold out their inventories. With that in mind, here are some exhibit and demonstration ideas to make the next festival even better:
How to start a home garden
The A,B,C’s of composting
What vegetables to plant and when
What grows best in the soil where you live
Sustainable gardening
Raised bed gardening
Container gardening
Hydroponic gardening
Natural garden pest control
Q&A with a Disney horticultural expert
Here’s hoping the 30th festival, a milestone anniversary, will be even better in 2023!
My last festival visit was many years ago at this time of year and I longed to return, but a busy life just got in the way. I was committed to being there in 2020. May is also a great time to visit Disney World because it is considered a gap month between the spring break and summer seasons when crowds swell. I pouted internally like a 12-year-old at missing, yet again, this year’s opportunity to go. (A man of a certain age should never pout openly to the rest of the family. Be strong, I told myself.) So, instead of driving to Orlando, I did the next best thing: I pretended with childlike imagination at home. I have a Mickey statue and he’s made in the form of a gardener. It was gifted to me several years ago. So, I placed Mickey at several different locations in my garden and snapped a few photos with my iPhone. I retouched the photos a bit in an app called 
