Bring your family to Atlanta Botanical Garden to take a magical journey through their latest exhibit, Imaginary Worlds: Alice's Wonderland. Imaginary Worlds features giant sculptures made from a variety of perennial plants, known as mosaiculture. You may recognize some sculptures from the 2018 exhibit, like the Dragon, Mammoth, Phoenix, and Camels, but they are flourishing with a new palette of plant varieties.
Characters from Lewis Carroll's classic tale, Alice in Wonderland, are the focus of new exhibition pieces, which includes 16 installations made up of 38 individual sculptures. You can't miss the 27-foot-tall White Rabbit floating in an upside-down umbrella at the Skyline Garden pond. This sculpture is taller than the Earth Goddess sculpture, at 22 feet tall. My daughter calls the Earth Goddess "Tefiti" from Disney's Moana.
To the left of the Skyline Garden Pond, you'll find a giant chess board. This board is lined by 9 heart shaped trees that are 12 feet tall, chess pieces of knights, pawns, and of course the guards of the Queen of Hearts. See if you can spot the sly Cheshire cat and, of course, Alice, in other areas of the garden.
I watched as garden artists added the final touches to the Dragon and Camel sculptures in preparation for the exhibition opening last weekend. I had a brief chat with one of the horticulturalists and I was truly impressed by all the details in planning and creating this incredible exhibition of sculptures.
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FUN FACTS
- In 2019, Atlanta Botanical Gardens is the only place in the world to see a major exhibition of sculptures designed by International Mosaiculture of Montreal.
- It took 4 tractor-trailers to transport the White Rabbit and chess pieces from Montreal, Canada to Atlanta.
- The sculptures of Alice's Wonderland contain more than 110,000 plants, representing 38 types of varieties.
- TIP: Look for a potted plant in front of the sculpture that has a green circle in the middle (the pot is usually located in a corner). The plants in that pot are the colorful variety of plants used in the sculpture. Each sculpture has a unique palette of plants.
- It took about 4,160 man hours to create the exhibition. The dragon alone took 750 hours to stuff with soil and plants.
- More than 12,000 square feet of mesh fabric hold the soil inside the metal frame of the sculptures. For comparison, that is about the size of 2 basketball courts or 3 IMAX movie screens!
I don't have a green thumb, so I was truly amazed at the detail of these sculptures! Definitely bring your family to check out this cool exhibit and enjoy strolling the other areas and the playground! Also check the website for the weekly event calendar which includes special storytimes and performances for children.
Imaginary Worlds is open through October 27, 2019. The garden is open Tuesday - Sunday (and Memorial Day) from 9am - 7pm. For tickets, visit the Atlanta Botanical Garden website, https://atlantabg.org/
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