EPCOT Flower and Garden Festival Topiaries: What You Don’t Want to Miss

See the incredible EPCOT Flower and Garden Festival topiaries, plus tips for finding them, taking great photos and enjoying them without turning your day into a checklist.

Estimated reading time: 24 minutes

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I love pretty much everything about the EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival.

The food is fantastic. Garden Rocks is so much fun. The butterfly garden is lovely. And EPCOT itself is absolutely gorgeous during the festival.

But if you ask me what you absolutely, positively cannot miss?

The topiaries.

They are insane.

And I don’t mean that in a hey, those bushes shaped like Disney characters are cute kind of way. Some of these displays are enormous. They’re incredibly detailed. They’re surrounded by thousands of flowers. And they’re spread throughout EPCOT in ways that make the entire park feel like it has been transformed for spring.

In 2026, Disney had more than 60 character topiaries spread throughout EPCOT, representing everything from classic Disney characters to Pixar, princesses, Encanto, Coco, Moana, The Lion King and more.

And yes, I took approximately eleventy-billion pictures of them.

You’re welcome. 😂

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What Are the EPCOT Flower and Garden Topiaries?

Every spring, Disney’s horticulture teams transform EPCOT with living sculptures inspired by Disney characters.

And calling them all “bushes shaped like characters” really doesn’t do them justice.

Some are traditional green topiaries. Others use different plants, flowers and materials to create incredibly detailed faces, clothing, hair and accessories. Some displays incorporate props, lighting and elaborate landscaping. Disney has even combined horticulture with technology in newer designs—for example, Imagineers have used special textures and lighting effects in some character displays.

Once you start looking closely, that’s actually one of the most interesting parts.

Different plants create different colors and textures. Hair doesn’t necessarily look like clothing. Fur doesn’t necessarily look like skin. Flowers and landscaping around the characters become part of the composition.

And sometimes you discover a tiny caterpillar sitting on one of the Seven Dwarfs’ noses.

Seriously.

Get close to these things.

Where Are the Flower and Garden Topiaries?

They’re basically everywhere.

Disney spreads the topiaries throughout World Celebration, World Discovery, World Nature and World Showcase.

That means you don’t have to carve out a special hour of your EPCOT day and announce, “Okay! We are now going to look at topiaries!”

You’ll naturally encounter many of them as you tour the park.

But—and this is important—I wouldn’t rely entirely on that.

Some of the displays are impossible to miss. Others are tucked into pavilion gardens or areas you might walk straight past if you’re rushing from attraction to attraction.

And that’s one of the reasons I recommend slowing down during Flower & Garden.

This isn’t a festival where everything happens at a food booth or on a stage. The park itself is part of the festival.

The topiaries are probably the best example of that.

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The Topiary Lineup Changes

One thing to know before your trip is that the Flower & Garden topiary lineup isn’t permanently fixed.

Disney brings back plenty of favorites, but characters can be added, moved or changed from year to year. In recent festivals, the lineup has included everyone from Mickey and Minnie to Tinker Bell, Simba, Winnie the Pooh, Snow White, Belle, Mirabel, Miguel, Lightning McQueen, Buzz Lightyear, Mike Wazowski, Groot and Stitch.

Disney also introduces new displays. Recent additions have included characters from Wish, Coco and Guardians of the Galaxy, while 2026 brought another huge collection of returning and newer favorites.

So if there’s a particular character you’re hoping to see, check Disney’s current festival information before your trip.

But I wouldn’t turn this into a checklist unless that’s genuinely fun for you.

You do not need to find every single topiary to enjoy Flower & Garden.

Some Topiaries Are Entire Scenes

This was something I didn’t fully appreciate until I started paying more attention to them.

Some aren’t really individual topiaries at all.

They’re installations.

You’ll find entire groups of characters arranged together, often with elaborate landscaping and scenery around them. The Lion King. Moana. Winnie the Pooh and friends. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Mickey and Minnie with their friends.

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And these are often my favorites because there’s so much to look at.

Walk around them if you can. Look at them from different angles. Notice how the landscaping frames the characters.

There’s a lot more going on than you’ll see in one quick snapshot as you walk past.

World Showcase Is One of the Best Places to Look

I especially love the topiaries around World Showcase because Disney can use the pavilion itself as part of the backdrop.

Peter Pan characters in the United Kingdom.

Beauty and the Beast in France.

Characters surrounded by the architecture, flowers and landscaping of their respective areas.

It makes the topiaries feel like they actually belong there rather than simply being decorations that Disney dropped into the park for a festival.

And if you’re already spending time exploring World Showcase—which you absolutely should—finding the topiaries gives you one more reason to wander into areas you might otherwise skip.

Don’t Just Look at the Characters

This is probably my biggest tip.

It’s very easy to arrive at Flower & Garden thinking:

TOPIARIES!

And then spend the entire day looking for Mickey, Moana and Groot.

But look at everything around them, too.

Disney reported more than 31 gardens and floral displays during the 2026 festival in addition to those 60+ topiaries.

That’s a ridiculous amount of landscaping.

There are huge beds of flowers, specialty gardens, floating planters, the English Tea Garden, butterfly habitats, pollinator gardens and landscaping throughout World Showcase that is beautiful even when there isn’t a Disney character anywhere in sight.

This is why I keep saying that during Flower & Garden, EPCOT itself becomes the festival.

The topiaries may be the stars, but they’re surrounded by a pretty spectacular supporting cast.

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Go Early If You Want Great Topiary Photos

Here’s something I would absolutely do differently if topiary photos matter to you:

Get there early.

Most people use Early Entry at EPCOT to get ahead of the ride lines.

And sure. That’s a very good reason to use it.

But Flower & Garden gives you another one.

You can get much cleaner photos of the topiaries before EPCOT fills with people.

That’s especially useful for the big displays near major walkways, where later in the day you may be photographing Mickey Mouse plus 37 strangers, two strollers and somebody eating a festival snack behind him.

If you want beautiful photos, spend at least a little of your early morning taking advantage of the quieter park.

You don’t have to sacrifice your entire rope-drop strategy. Even stopping for a few minutes as you move through EPCOT can make a huge difference.

Look at Them Again at Night

Don’t assume you’re finished with the topiaries once you’ve seen them during the day.

Some displays are illuminated after dark, and the lighting can completely change the way they look.

Plus, EPCOT itself is gorgeous at night.

So if you’re passing one of your favorites again after sunset, stop.

Flower & Garden isn’t exclusively a daytime experience just because flowers look pretty in the sunshine.

You Don’t Need to Hunt Down Every Single One

This is where my usual Disney advice applies.

Unless finding every topiary sounds genuinely fun to you, don’t turn this into another Disney World completion challenge.

There are a lot of them.

You presumably also came to EPCOT to ride Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, wander through World Showcase, eat something delicious, watch a show, meet characters and maybe sit down occasionally. 😂

Let the topiaries become part of that day.

Stop when you see one you love.

Walk through the gardens.

Take the ridiculous number of pictures.

Look for the little details.

And if you miss three characters on the opposite side of EPCOT? It’s okay.

You still experienced Flower & Garden.

Are the Flower and Garden Topiaries Worth Making Time For?

Absolutely.

In fact, I think skipping the topiaries would mean missing one of the main reasons to visit EPCOT during the Flower & Garden Festival in the first place.

The Outdoor Kitchens are great, but EPCOT has fantastic food all year.

Concerts are fun, but EPCOT has entertainment all year.

The topiaries and extraordinary landscaping are what make the park look and feel fundamentally different during Flower & Garden.

And you don’t need hours of dedicated topiary-hunting time to appreciate them.

They’re already woven into your EPCOT day.

You just have to notice them.

What I Would Do on a First Visit

If this were my first Flower & Garden Festival, I wouldn’t make a spreadsheet of 60+ topiaries and march my family around EPCOT trying to collect them all.

I would arrive early.

I’d take advantage of the relatively empty park to photograph some of the biggest displays before the crowds build.

Then I’d tour EPCOT normally.

Ride the rides. Eat festival food. Explore World Showcase. See Garden Rocks if there’s a performer I care about. Visit the butterfly garden. Ride Living with the Land.

And throughout the entire day, I’d keep looking.

Because that’s really the magic of the Flower & Garden topiaries.

You round a corner and there’s Tinker Bell.

You wander into another pavilion and find Winnie the Pooh.

There’s Groot holding a cassette tape.

There are all Seven Dwarfs lined up in a flower bed.

And then you get close enough to one of them and discover that somebody at Disney decided what this scene really needed was a tiny caterpillar sitting on a dwarf’s nose.

This is why you slow down.

The topiaries aren’t something you need to squeeze into your EPCOT itinerary.

They’re one of the best reasons to stop squeezing quite so much into your EPCOT itinerary in the first place.

How Disney Creates the EPCOT Topiaries

One of the reasons I think the topiaries are worth slowing down for is that they’re much more complicated than they look from 20 feet away.

Disney’s horticulture team uses a combination of traditional topiary techniques and more elaborate character forms to create the displays. Some characters are covered primarily in living plant material, while others incorporate things like moss, flowers, grasses and other natural materials to create different colors and textures.

That’s why they don’t all look the same.

Look at Lady and the Tramp, for example, and you’ll see completely different plant textures used to create their fur. Mike Wazowski looks nothing like Simba. Tinker Bell uses horticulture alongside non-plant elements to create details that would be difficult to reproduce with greenery alone.

Then there are characters like Groot, where the subject itself almost seems designed for Flower & Garden. I mean… he’s a tree. Disney had an unfair advantage with that one. 😂

Disney’s horticulture teams also have to keep these displays looking good throughout a festival that lasts for months in the Florida sun. The plants continue growing, which means the topiaries require ongoing care and maintenance throughout the festival.

Once you realize how much work goes into them, they become even more impressive.

Look for the Different Textures

This is one of those things that I think kids—and frankly adults—could turn into a fun little game without needing an official scavenger hunt.

Get close enough to really look at the characters.

What did Disney use for hair?

How did they create fur?

Which parts are actually growing plants?

Where did they use flowers?

What materials create the character’s clothing?

Some topiaries are incredibly green and traditional-looking. Others have reds, yellows, browns, whites and practically every shade imaginable worked into them.

Even within a single display, the horticulturists can use different plants and materials to distinguish one character from another.

You don’t need to know the name of every plant to appreciate it.

I certainly don’t. 😂

But once you start looking for those differences, the topiaries become much more interesting than simply spotting which Disney character you’re looking at.

Don’t Miss the Tiny Details

And then there are the details.

This is where my beloved caterpillar comes in.

One of my favorite photos from Flower & Garden isn’t actually a sweeping photograph of one of the enormous displays. It’s a close-up of one of the Seven Dwarfs with a teeny-tiny caterpillar sitting on his nose.

I LOVE IT.

Those are the kinds of details you miss if your entire strategy is to walk up, take one picture and keep moving.

Look at the expressions. Look at the props. Check out the flowers planted around the characters. Notice how Disney has positioned them in relation to one another.

Some of these displays tell little stories.

And that’s worth an extra minute or two.

The Best Topiaries for Photos

This changes from year to year because the lineup changes, but I tend to gravitate toward two kinds of displays.

First, I love the big character groupings.

Mickey and Minnie surrounded by an explosion of flowers? Yes.

The entire Lion King scene? Absolutely.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs stretching through a massive flower bed? Gorgeous.

Those displays immediately communicate what Flower & Garden is all about.

But I also really love the topiaries that have a strong sense of place.

Beauty and the Beast look even better when you can see the France pavilion behind them. Peter Pan characters make sense tucked into the United Kingdom. The dragon in China is surrounded by landscaping and architecture that make the whole thing feel cohesive.

Those are often my favorite photographs because you’re not just photographing a topiary.

You’re photographing Flower & Garden at EPCOT.

Use the EPCOT Backgrounds

If you’re taking pictures, don’t automatically zoom in as tightly as possible.

Sometimes the better photograph is the wider one.

Spaceship Earth peeking out behind a topiary immediately tells you where you are. World Showcase architecture can make an already beautiful display even better. Huge flower beds give you color and context.

Obviously, take the close-up too.

This is Disney World. Digital photos are free. Go nuts. 😂

But before you walk away, back up and look at the whole scene.

You may like that photograph even more.

Should You Use Early Entry Just for the Topiaries?

I actually think this is a legitimate strategy.

Would I tell a first-time Disney World visitor to completely ignore Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure or Frozen Ever After during Early Entry because they need an empty picture of Winnie the Pooh?

Probably not.

But if you’re visiting EPCOT during Flower & Garden and you’ve already ridden the major attractions—or you’re using Lightning Lane to handle some of them—then yes.

I would absolutely consider using part of Early Entry for the topiaries.

There’s something wonderful about seeing EPCOT before the walkways become packed, particularly during a festival this visually beautiful.

It also gets at something I’ve become increasingly convinced of with Disney touring strategy:

Efficiency doesn’t always have to mean doing more.

Sometimes efficiency means using Lightning Lane or Early Entry to create room in your day for the things that don’t have a wait-time number attached to them.

Flower & Garden is full of those things.

How Much Time Should You Allow for the Topiaries?

I wouldn’t.

And by that I mean I wouldn’t block off something like 10:00–11:30: See Topiaries on my itinerary.

That’s not really how they’re best experienced.

You’re going to encounter them while walking between attractions. You’ll see more while exploring World Showcase. You’ll stumble across others while heading toward food booths or restaurants.

The trick isn’t scheduling the topiaries.

It’s leaving enough breathing room in your EPCOT day to stop when you find them.

If your touring plan has you racing from Lightning Lane to dining reservation to attraction to festival booth every 15 minutes, you’re probably going to walk straight past some of the best parts of Flower & Garden.

Give yourself permission to stop.

That’s really all the time you need to “schedule.”

Do Kids Care About the Topiaries?

This obviously depends on the kid, but I wouldn’t assume the answer is no.

These aren’t formal gardens where you’re asking a six-year-old to admire an unusual variety of hydrangea for 20 minutes.

They’re Disney characters.

A kid who couldn’t care less about horticulture might be extremely interested in finding Buzz Lightyear, Simba, Mike Wazowski, Tinker Bell or Mickey Mouse made out of plants.

And because the topiaries are spread around EPCOT, you don’t have to force children through a dedicated garden tour.

Spot one. Take a picture. Keep going.

That makes them one of the easiest festival experiences to incorporate into a normal family EPCOT day.

Are the Topiaries Included With EPCOT Admission?

Yes.

You don’t need a separate festival ticket to see the Flower & Garden topiaries. The EPCOT International Flower & Garden Festival is included with regular EPCOT admission, although obviously some festival experiences, food and merchandise cost extra.

That’s one more reason I think the topiaries provide so much value.

You don’t need to buy anything.

You don’t need a reservation.

There isn’t a standby line.

You aren’t trying to secure a virtual queue at exactly 7:00 AM.

You literally just have to look around.

At Disney World, that feels almost revolutionary. 😂

My Favorite EPCOT Flower & Garden Topiaries

I don’t think I could rank them.

Seriously.

Every time I start thinking I have a favorite, I remember another one.

I love Mickey and Minnie because they’re classic Disney and the displays surrounding them are usually spectacular.

Beauty and the Beast are gorgeous.

The Lion King grouping is incredible.

Moana and Maui are fantastic.

Groot makes me laugh because, again, tree.

But I think what I enjoy most is the variety.

One minute you’re looking at a massive scene with multiple characters. Ten minutes later you find a tiny detail hidden within another display. Then you walk into another pavilion and discover a completely different collection.

And Disney keeps changing them.

That’s important because it means the topiaries aren’t just something you see once and check off your Disney World list forever.

I’ve visited Flower & Garden more than once, and I still want to see what they’ve done each time I go back.

A Few Flower & Garden Topiary Tips Before You Go

If the topiaries are one of your priorities, there are a few things I would keep in mind.

• Check the current year’s festival information. Characters and locations can change, so don’t rely on a three-year-old blog post telling you exactly where every topiary will be.
• Use Disney’s current festival information or map while you’re there. That’s going to be much more useful for finding a specific character than an old static location list.
• Go early for cleaner photos. This matters especially for the large displays along busy walkways.
• Don’t forget World Showcase. Some of my favorite displays are integrated into the individual pavilions.
• Look at the landscaping, not just the characters. The surrounding gardens are a huge part of what makes these displays spectacular.
• Take wide photos and close-ups. You’ll want both.
• Look again after dark. Lighting can make familiar displays feel completely different.
• Don’t make yourself see every single one. Unless hunting all of them is fun for you, there is no prize for completing Topiary Pokémon. 😂

Most importantly, slow down enough to notice them.

Final Thoughts: The Topiaries Are One of the Best Parts of Flower & Garden

I go to Disney World for the rides.

I love the food.

I’ll happily plan a trip around a festival, a special event or some ridiculous new Disney thing I absolutely do not need to experience but obviously will. 😂

But the Flower & Garden topiaries are different.

They don’t require you to do anything.

And I think that’s part of what makes them so special.

They turn walking through EPCOT into an attraction.

You don’t have to stand in line to see them. You don’t need Lightning Lane. There isn’t a reservation to make or a dining package to buy.

You just walk through an already beautiful theme park that, for a few months every year, has been absolutely covered in flowers and filled with dozens of Disney characters made out of plants.

And every once in a while, you stop.

You look a little closer.

You notice the ridiculous detail somebody put into Eeyore’s hair or Lady’s ears or the flowers surrounding Mickey and Minnie.

Maybe you discover a caterpillar sitting on a dwarf’s nose.

Then you take another picture.

Or 47.

Welcome to the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival. 😂

More EPCOT Planning Tips

If you’re planning a trip to EPCOT during the Flower & Garden Festival, these guides can help you figure out how the topiaries fit into the rest of your day:

• EPCOT Flower and Garden Festival for First Timers — Start here for my complete guide to the festival, including the topiaries, gardens, Outdoor Kitchens, Garden Rocks concerts, butterfly garden and everything else you can experience during Flower & Garden.
• Can You Skip EPCOT Early Entry? I Tested a Late-Start Strategy — This is my real-world EPCOT touring experiment from Flower & Garden, including how I balanced Lightning Lane, rides and festival experiences—and why the topiaries became part of my touring strategy instead of something I tried to squeeze in separately.
• EPCOT Rope Drop Strategy — If you want to arrive early, this guide walks through how to use those first hours efficiently so you have more time later to slow down and enjoy things like the Flower & Garden topiaries.
• EPCOT Early Entry Strategy — Early Entry isn’t only valuable for shorter attraction lines. During Flower & Garden, those quieter morning walkways can also be one of the best opportunities to see and photograph the topiaries without huge crowds around them.
• Where to Meet Characters at EPCOT — Once you’ve photographed Mickey, Minnie, Winnie the Pooh and half the Disney universe made out of plants, you might want to meet a few of the real characters too. Here’s where to find character meet-and-greets throughout EPCOT.
• Best Shows at EPCOT — EPCOT has much more to do beyond rides and festival activities. These are the shows and entertainment experiences worth working into your day—especially if you’re deliberately planning a slower EPCOT day during Flower & Garden.