The horticulture team at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida stages the Epcot International Flower Show and Garden Festival each spring.
The gardens represent a range of different types of landscapes from dry desert to tropical rain forest. An amazing 4,200 acres of landscapes and gardens are maintained by the horticultural team that does its work all through the night, under floodlights, once the day-time and evening visitors have departed.
There is an immense amount of work done behind the scenes. For example, each hanging basket of flowers takes three months to prepare and then is on display for three months. And the horticultural team prepares 5,000 of these colorful hanging baskets of flowers each year. There are 1,000 on display at all times.
The number of flowering plants used at Disney World each year is astounding: there are 3.5 million bedding plants and annuals and 4 million shrubs. The total number of different plant species is approximately 3,500, and the varied species come from all continents except Antarctica.
Roughly 80% of the Walt Disney World resort flowers are irrigated using reclaimed water.
Note: Integrated pest management practices include release of beneficial insects like lacewings and predatory mites, wasps and beetles.
